GIFT   OF 
A.   P.   Morrison 


THE    HORSE   IN    HISTORY 


THE    KNIGHT,    DEATH    AND    THE    DEVII. 
From  an  engraving  by  Albert  Diirer 


THE 

HORSE   IN   HISTORY 


BY 

BASIL  TOZER 

AUTHOR  OF 
PRACTICAL   HINTS  ON   RIDING  TO   HOUNDS "   ETC. 


WITH   TWENTY-FIVE   ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1908 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTE 

A  FTER  directly  helping  on  the  progress  of 
the  world  and  the  development  of  civilisa- 
tion almost  from  the  time  when,  according  to 
Nehring's  interesting  studies,  the  wild  and  primi- 
tive horses  of  the  great  Drift  began  to  exhibit 
distinct  differences  in  make,  shape  and  individual 
characteristics,  the  horse  has  reached  the  limit 
of  its  tether. 

For  with  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century, 
and  the  sudden  innovation  of  horseless  traffic, 
any  further  influence  that  it  might  have  exercised 
upon  the  advancement  of  the  human  race  comes 
rapidly  to  a  close. 

That  the  horse's  reign  is  over — though  it  is 
sincerely  to  be  hoped  that  horses  will  be  with  us 
still  for  many  years — the  statistics  issued  recently 
by  our  Board  of  Agriculture  in  a  measure  prove. 
For  in  those  statistics  it  is  stated  that  the  number 
of  horses  in  the  United  Kingdom  decreased  dur- 
ing last  year  alone  by  no  less  than  12,312,  and  later 
statistics  show  that  the  decrease  still  continues. 


M94376 


vi  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

In  the  following  pages,  therefore,  the  writer  has 
striven  to  trace  the  progress  of  the  horse  from 
very  early  times  down  to  the  present  day  mainly 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  effect  its  development 
had  upon  the  advancement  of  the  human  race. 
For  this  reason  though  a  selected  number  of 
the  most  famous  horses  that  lived  in  the  centuries 
before  Christ,  and  between  the  time  of  Christ 
and  the  period  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  and 
that  have  lived  within  the  last  nine  centuries, 
have  been  mentioned,  the  horses  of  romance 
and  mythology  have  for  the  most  part  been 
passed  over. 

Every  effort  has  been  made  to  obtain  informa- 
tion that  is  strictly  accurate,  a  task  of  no  small 
difficulty  owing  to  the  mass  of  contradictory 
evidence  with  which  the  writer  has  found  himself 
confronted  in  the  course  of  his  researches.  To 
the  best  of  his  ability  he  has  winnowed  the 
actual  facts  from  the  mass  of  fiction  that  he  has 
come  upon  in  the  writings  of  some  of  the  earlier 
historians,  and  to  some  extent  in  records,  manu- 
scripts and  private  letters  of  more  recent  times 
to  which  he  has  had  access. 

B.  J.  T. 

BOODLE'S  CLUB,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

PART    I 

FROM  VERY  EARLY  TIMES  TO  THE  CONQUEST 
CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

Rameses  ;  early  Egyptian  chariots — Horses  of  Babylon 
and  of  Libya — Erichthonius  ;  horse  of  Job  ;  horses  of 
Solomon— Early  circus  riding — Dancing  horses  of  the 
Sybarites ;  the  Crotonians'  stratagem — Homer's  " Iliad" ; 
Menesthus  ;  early  wagering  —  Patroclus  ;  Achilles  ; 
Euphorbus  ;  Hyperenor — Horses  and  chariots  of  the 
Thracians — Ancient  Greeks  and  horsemanship  ;  de- 
cline in  the  popularity  of  war  chariots  ;  inauguration  of 
cavalry — Xenophon  on  horsemanship — White  horses  .  I 

CHAPTER   II 

Increasing  interest  in  horses — Herodotus  ;  Thucydides  ; 
war  chariots  of  the  Persians — Horses  represented  on 
coinage — Wooden  horse  of  Troy — The  Parthenon  frieze  ; 
Greek  art — Plato  ;  white  horses — The  procession  of 
Xerxes ;  horses  and  men  sacrificed — The  horse  of 
Darius — Horse  racing  introduced  among  the  Romans 
— Xenophon  and  Simo — Early  horseshoes,  bits  and 
bitting ;  ancient  methods  of  mounting  .  ;  .  23 

CHAPTER   III 

Xenophon  disliked  the  "  American  "  seat — Cavalry  organised 
by  the  Athenians — Cost  of  horses  twenty-three  centuries 

vii 


viii  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

PAGE 

Chapter  III — continued 

ago — Aristophanes  ;  Aristotle  ;  Athenians'  fondness  for 
horse  racing — Alexander  the  Great ;  Bucephalus — Story 
of  Bucephalus  ;  his  death — Famous  painters  of  horses  : 
Apelles,  Pauson,  Micon — Mythical  flesh-eating  horses 
of  Diomed — Hannibal's  cavalry  of  12,000  horse — Coins 
— Posidonius ;  horses  of  the  Parthians,  Iberians  and 
Celtiberians  ':  ys  :  :  ;  :  .45 

CHAPTER   IV 

Virgil  on  the  points  of  a  horse — Caesar's  invasion — Abolition 
of  war  chariots — Precursor  of  the  horseshoe — Nero's 
2000  mules  shod  with  silver  ;  Poppsea's  shod  with  gold 
— The  Ossianic  and  Cuchulainn  epic  cycles  ;  Cuchu- 
lainn's  horses — The  Iceni  on  Newmarket  Heath  ;  early 
horse  racing  in  Britain — Horses  immolated  by  the 
Romans  ;  white  horses  as  prognosticators — Caligula's 
horse,  Incitatus  ;  Celer,  the  horse  of  Verus  ;  the  horse 
of  Belisarius  :  ,1  ;  i  '  ' .  •  t  67 

CHAPTER  V 

Mahomet  encourages  horse-breeding — Procopius  ;  a  mis- 
statement — Early  allusion  to  horse  races — Figures  of 
horses  cut  on  cliffs — Roland  and  his  horse,  Veillantiff — 
1  Orelia,  Roderick's  charger — Trebizond,  Alfana  ;  Odin's 
mythical  horse,  Sleipnir — Horse  fighting  in  Iceland — 
Some  horses  of  mythology  :  Pegasus,  Selene,  Xanthos, 
Balios,  Cyllaros,  Arion,  Reksh — Arab  pedigrees  traced 
through  dams — Influence  of  the  horse  upon  history — 
Courage  of  Julius  Caesar's  horses  .  .  .  86 

PART    II 

FROM  THE  CONQUEST  TO  THE  STUART  PERIOD 

CHAPTER   I 

The  Conqueror's  cavalry — Horse  fairs  and  races  at  Smith- 
field  —  King  John's  foolish  fad  —  The  Persians  and 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

Chapter  I — continued 

their  horses — Relics  of  Irish  art ;  what  they  indicate 
— Simon  de  Montfort  the  first  master  of  foxhounds — 
The  king's  right  to  commandeer  horses — Sir  Eustace 
de  Hecche  ;  Battle  of  Falkirk — Marco  Polo  and  white 
horses  ;  curious  superstitions — Edward  III.  and  Richard 
II.  encourage  horse  breeding — Battle  of  Crecy  :  .  107 

CHAPTER   II 

Richard  II.'s  horse,  Roan  Barbary — Thoroughbred  English 
horses  characteristic  of  the  nation — Chaucer  ;  Cambus- 
can's  wooden  horse — Don  Quixote's  Aligero  Clavileno 
— Horse  race  between  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  Lord 
Arundel — The  Chevalier  Bayard ;  his  horse,  Carman 
— The  Earl  of  Warwick's  horse,  Black  Saladin — Joan  of 
Arc — King  Richard's  horse,  White  Surrey — Charles 
VIII.  of  France's  horse,  Savoy — Dame  Julyana  Berners 
— Wolsey's  horsemanship — Queen  Elizabeth's  stud  ;  127 

CHAPTER   III 

Inauguration  and  development  of  the  Royal  Stud — Ex- 
portation of  horses  declared  by  Henry  VIII.  to  be 
illegal — Sale  of  horses  to  Scotsmen  pronounced  to  be 
an  act  of  felony — Riding  matches  become  popular — 
Ferdinand  of  Arragon's  gift  of  horses  to  Henry  VIII. 
— Henry's  love  of  hunting — King  Henry  stakes  the  bells 
of  St  Paul's  on  a  throw  of  the  dice — Some  horses  of 
romance — Horse-breeding  industry  crippled  in  Scotland  148 

CHAPTER   IV 

North  America  without  horses  when  Columbus  landed — 
Scarcity  of  horses  at  the  Conquest  of  Mexico — Francisco 
Pizarro;  his  cavaliers  terrify  the  Indians — Emperor 
Charles  V.  sends  horses  to  King  Edward  VI. — David 
Hume,  "  a  man  remarkable  for  piety,  probity,  candour 
and  integrity";  his  practices  in  connection  with  horse 
racing — Queen  Elizabeth  fond  of  racing ;  condition  of 


x  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

PAGE 

Chapter  IV — continued 

the  Turf  during  her  reign — Stallions  fed  on  eggs  and 
oysters — Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury's  antagonistic  atti- 
tude towards  the  Turf — Some  horses  in  Shakespeare's 
plays — Performing  horse  and  its  owner  publicly  burnt 
to  death — Horses  trained  by  cruelty  -.  .  .  .168 

CHAPTER   V 

King  Henry  VIII:  and  Queen  Elizabeth  passionately  fond 
of  hunting — John  Selwyn's  remarkable  feat  in  the 
hunting  field ;  the  monument  at  Walton-on-Thames — 
Don  Quixote  and  his  steed,  Rosinante ;  Peter  of 
Provence's  wooden  horse,  Babieca ;  Clavileno  and  the 
Cid's  horse — Mary  Queen  of  Scots'  favourite  horses — 
Queen  Elizabeth's  retinue  of  2400  horses — Arundel, 
Aquiline,  Brigadore — The  horses  of  Anatolia  and 
Syria — Sir  Robert  Carey's  historic  ride  from  London  to 
Edinburgh  in  sixty  hours — The  horses  of  Napoleon  I.  187 


PART   III 

FROM   THE  STUART   PERIOD  TO  THE  PRESENT 

DAY 

CHAPTER   I 

Arrival  of  the  Markham  Arabian,  the  first  Arab  imported 
into  England — Newmarket  village  founded  by  James  I. 
— Decline  of  the  "  great  horse  " — The  Royal  Studs — 
James  I.  organises  a  race  meeting  on  the  frozen  River 
Ouse — Superstitious  beliefs  concerning  horses — James 
I.  meets  with  a  grotesque  riding  mishap — Prosperity  of 
the  Turf — Riding  match  between  Lord  Haddington  and 
Lord  Sheffield — The  Turf  vigorously  denounced  as  "  an 
evil  likely  to  imperil  the  whole  country's  prosperity  ?>  .  202 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

CHAPTER   II 

First  races  of  importance  run  at  Newmarket — Races  in 
Hyde  Park— The  Helmsley  Turk  and  the  Morocco 
Barb — Racing  introduced  into  Holland — Importation  of 
Spanish  stallions  into  England — Prince  Charles's  riding 
master,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle — Increasing  cost  of 
horses — Marshal  de  Bassompierre ;  his  loss  through 
gambling,  ,£500,000  in  a  year ;  Sir  John  Fenwick — 
Sir  Edward  Harwood's  pessimism — Cromwell's  Iron- 
sides— Armour  discarded — The  opposition  to  stage 
coaches;  Mr  Cressett's  theory;  Charles  II.  favours 
their  adoption  .  .  .  .  .  .  222 

CHAPTER   III 

The  Commonwealth's  "  ordinance  to  prohibit  horse  racing  l>- 
— Revival  of  racing  under  Charles  II. — The  King  a 
finished  horseman — The  figure  of  Britannia — The  Royal 
Mares — Formation  of  the  thoroughbred  stud — Thomas 
Shadwell's  cynical  description  of  life  at  Newmarket — 
Spread  of  horse  racing  in  Ireland — Jockeys  at  New- 
market entertained  by  Charles  II. — Sir  Robert  Carr ; 
the  Duke  of  Monmouth's  connection  with  the  Turf — 
Annual  charge  for  horses  of  the  Royal  household, 
,£16,640 — Newmarket  under  the  regime  of  the  Merry 
Monarch ;  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  .  .  .  242 

CHAPTER   IV 

Arrival  of  the  Byerley  Turk — Roman  Catholics  forbidden 
to  own  a  horse  worth  over  £$ — Henry  Hyde,  Earl  of 
Clarendon,  on  the  manners  of  the  age — King  William 
III.'s  death  due  to  a  riding  accident — The  Duke 
of  Cumberland's  breeding  establishment  in  Queen 
Anne's  reign — Arrival  of  the  Darley  Arabian — The 
Godolphin  Arabian — Royal  Ascot  inaugurated  by 
Queen  Anne — "Docking"  and  "  cropping '-'-  con- 
demned by  Queen  Anne  ;  attempt  to  suppress  these 


xii  THE  HORSE  IN  HISTORY 

PAGE 

Chapter  IV — continued 

practices — The    story    of   Eclipse — Some    horses    of 
romance — Copenhagen  and  Marengo     .  .  .      261 

CHAPTER   V 

A  retrospective  summary — The  beginning  of  the  end — 
Superstition  of  the  horseshoe  —  The  Bedouins  and 
their  horses — Some  classic  thoroughbreds  of  modern 
times — Horses  hypnotised — The  Derby  and  the  Oaks 
— Horse  racing  in  Mongolia — Conclusion  .  /r';  281 

INDEX   .......          .     295 


FACING   PAGE 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Knight,  Death,  and  the  Devil          .  .     Frontispiece 

From  an  engraving  by  Albert  Diirer. 

Combat  between  Amazons  and  Attic  heroes.     Fourth 

century,  B.C.  .  .  .  .  .19 

From  a  Greek  vase  in  the  British  Museum. 

Greek    coins   showing   horses   in    the   early  centuries 

before  Christ  .  .  .  .  -27 

The  Emperor  Trajan,  showing  Roman  style  of  riding    .         33 
From  Richard  Berenger's  "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship." 

The  Emperor  Theodosius,  showing  saddle        .  .         33 

From  Richard  Berenger's  "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship." 

A  Parthian  horseman,  showing  Parthian  style  of  riding 

bareback        ?  .  .  .  .  -33 

From  Richard  Berenger's  "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship." 

Sarmatian  horse  and  warrior,  meant  to  represent  horse 
and  rider  in  armour  made  of  plates  of  bone  or  of 
horsehoof      ......         33 

From  Richard  Berenger's  "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship. " 

A  portion  of  the  Parthenon  Frieze,  executed  by  Phidias 

about  the  year  440  B.C.          .  .  .  -39 


xni 


xiv  THE  HORSE  IN  HISTORY 

FACING  PAGE 

Roman  soldier  about  to  adjust  "stocking"  used  in 
place  of  shoes  .....  45 

From  Richard  Berenger's  "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship." 

Roman  soldier  about  to  mount  on  off  side        .  .         45 

From  Richard  Berenger's  "The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship." 

A  Mauritanian  horseman,  showing  how  the  Mauritanians 

and  Humidians  rode  without  saddle  or  bridle  .         45 

From  Richard  Berenger's  "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship. " 

Alexander    the   Great  on   horseback,  about   338  B.C. 

The  figure  is  believed  to  represent  Bucephalus          .         55 
From  a  bronze  in  the  British  Museum. 

Persians  fighting  with  elephants  against  the  Romans, 
about  the  time  of  Pyrrhus,  280  B.C.  This  picture 
has  been  wrongly  attributed  to  Raphael  . '  .  63 

From  an  engraving. 

Caligula  on  horseback.     About  37  A.D.  ',*•*•'         .         79 

From  a  figure  in  the  British  Museum. 

Bayeux  tapestry  supposed  to  represent  the  Battle  of 

Hastings,  1066  .         .,,«..         •  •  .109 

Statue  of  Colleoni  by  Verrocchio  in  Venice      .  .       203 

From  a  photo  by  R.  Anderson,  Rome. 

Van  Dyck's  famous  picture  of  Charles  I.  on  horseback 

in  the  National  Gallery,  London       .  .  .225 

From  a  photo  by  Franz  Hanfstsengl. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xv 

FACING  PAGE 

Oliver  Cromwell  on  horseback  .  .  233 

After  the  painting  by  Van  Dyck. 

Horses  of  the  Cavaliers,  seventeenth  century.  From  a 
painting  in  the  possession  of  his  Majesty  King 
Edward  VII.  .  .  .  .  .243 

From  a  photograph  by  Franz  Hanfstsengl. 

The  Duke  of  Schonberg  on  a  typical  charger  of  the  early 

seventeenth  century  .  .  .  .257 

After  the  painting  by  Sir  G.  Kneller. 

Flying  Childers,  bred  by  Mr  Leonard  Childers  in  1715, 
is  said  to  have  been  "the  fastest  horse  that  has  ever 
lived"  ......       269 

From  a  photograph  by  A.  Rischgitz. 

Mr  O'Kelly's  Eclipse,  the  most  famous  thoroughbred 
stallion  ever  foaled,  1764  .  .  .  273 

After  the  painting  by  G.  Stubbs. 

Napoleon  at  Wagram    .  .  .  .  .297 

From  the  famous  painting  by  Vernet  at  Versailles. 
From  a  photo  by  Neurdein  freres. 

Wellington's  famous  horse,  Copenhagen  .  .281 

From  an  engraving  (Photo  by  A.  Rischgitz). 

Flying  Dutchman,  foaled  1846  .  .  .       285 

From  a  life-size  painting  by  Herring.     By  kind  permission 

of  the  Earl  of  Rosebery. 
From  a  photograph  by  W.  E.  Gray. 


SOME    WORKS   CONSULTED 

the  many  volumes  the  writer  has  consulted 
whilst  engaged  in  compiling  this  book,  the 
following  are  among  the  more  important.  The 
list  is  arranged  alphabetically,  according  to  the 
authors'  names.  To  the  authors  or  editors,  as 
the  case  may  be,  and  to  the  publishers  of  these 
works,  the  writer  here  begs  to  acknowledge  his 
very  deep  indebtedness  for  the  assistance  he  has 
derived  from  consulting  the  volumes  named. 

ARRIAN  (F.) — "The  Anabasis  of  Alexander." 
AUREGGIO  (E.) — "  Les  Chevaux  du  Nord  de  I'Afrique." 
AZARA  (F.  DE)— "  The  Natural  History  of  the  Quadrupeds 

of  Paraguay  and  the  River  La  Plata." 
BERENGER  (R.) — "  The  History  and  Art  of  Horseman- 
ship." 

BLOUNT  (T.)— "  Antient  Tenures." 
BLUNT  (W.  S.)  "  Bedouin  Tribes  of  the  Euphrates." 
BOUSSON  (M.  A.  E.) — "Etude  de  la  Representation  du 

Cheval." 

CHARRAS  (J.  B.  A.)  "Histoire  de  la  Campagne  de  1815." 
CHOMEL  (C.) — "  Histoire  du  Cheval  dans  1'antiquite  et 

son  role  dans  la  civilization. " 

CHURCH  (A.  J.) — "Roman  Life  in  the  Days  of  Cicero." 
COOK  (T.  A.)— "The  History  of  the  Turf,"  and  "  Eclipse 

and  O'Kelly." 

DARWIN  (C.  R.) — "  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants." 
b  xvii 


xviii          THE   HORSE   IN    HISTORY 

ERMAN  (A.)— "Life  in  Ancient  Egypt." 

EWART  (J.  C.)— "The  Multiple  Origin  of  Horses  and 
Ponies";  "A  Critical  Period  in  the  Development 
of  the  Horse  " ;  and  "  The  Penicuik  Experiments 
on  Breeding  between  Horses  and  Zebras." 

FITZWYGRAM  (Sir  F.  W.  J.)— "  Horses  and  Stables." 

FLOWER  (Sir  W.  H.)— "The  Horse." 

CAST  (E.) — "  Le  Cheval  Normand  et  ses  Origines." 

GREENWELL  (W.) — "British  Barrows." 

GILBEY  (Sir  W.) — "  Horses  Past  and  Present,"  and  "  The 
Great  Horse,  or  War  Horse." 

HADDON  (A.  C.)— "  The  Study  of  Man." 

HALL  (H.)— The  Horses  of  the  British  Empire." 

HAYES  (M.  H.) — "Points  on  the  Horse." 

HOLM  (A.)— "The  History  of  Greece." 

HORE  (J.  P.)—"  History  of  Newmarket." 

HUME  (D.) — "Imperial  History  of  England." 

HUME  (D.)— "  The  History  of  the  House  of  Douglas." 

JOWETT  (B.)— "Thucydides." 

JONSON  (B.)— ".The  Alchemist." 

LODGE  (E.) — "  Illustrations  of  British  History." 

MAYNE  (C.)— "Odes  of  Pindar." 

MONTFAUCON  (B.  DE) — "  Antiquities." 

MORGAN  (H.) — "  The  Art  of  Horsemanship." 

MURRAY  (D).— "  Life  of  Joan  of  Arc." 

MITCHELL  (T.) — "  The  Comedies  of  Aristophanes." 

NEWCASTLE  (DUKE  OF)— "  Observations  on  Horses." 

PETRIE  (F.) — "  History  of  Egypt." 

PIETREMENT  (C.  A.) — "  Les  Chevaux  dans  les  Temps 
Historiques  et  pre-Historiques." 

PLUTARCH — "  Life  of  Alexander  the  Great." 

PRESCOTT  (W.  H.)— "The  Conquest  of  Mexico." 

REYCE  (R).— "  Breviary  of  Suffolk." 

RIDGEWAY  (W.) — "The  Origin  and  Influence  of  the 
Domestic  Horse,"  and  "The  Early  Age  of  Greece." 


SOME   WORKS    CONSULTED  xix 

RUSKIN  (J.)— "The  Queen  of  the  Air." 

SCHLIEBEN  (A.) — "The  Horse  in  Antiquity." 

SIDNEY  (S.)— "  The  Book  of  the  Horse." 

SOTHERBY  (W.) — "  Georgics  of  Virgil." 

SOUTHEY  (R.) — "  Iliad  of  Homer." 

STREET  (F.) — "The  History  of  the  Shire  Horse." 

STRUTT  (J.) — "  Sports  and  Pastimes  of  the  People  of 

England." 

TASSO  (T.) — "  Jerusalem  Delivered." 
TAUNTON  (T.)— "  Famous  Horses." 
TRIMMER  (Mrs  M.) — "  Natural  History." 
TWEEDIE  (Mrs  ALEC.) — "  Hyde  Park  :  Its  History  and 

Romance." 

TWEEDIE  (W.)— "  The  Arabian  Horse." 
UPTON  (Capt.  R.  D.) — "  Newmarket  and  Arabia." 
VAUX  (Baron  C.  M.  de)— "  A  Cheval.     Etude  des  Races 

Franchises  et  Etrangeres." 
WHITE  (C.)— "  History  of  the  Turf." 
WITT  (C.)— "  The  Trojan  War." 
YULE  (Sir  H.)— "  Marco  Polo." 

Standard  classics  consulted  have  for  the  most 
part  been  omitted  from  this  list.  The  writer 
wishes  in  addition  to  thank  his  friend,  Dr 
William  Barry,  the  distinguished  classical  scholar, 
for  the  trouble  he  has  taken  in  helping  to  revise 
some  of  the  earlier  of  the  proof  sheets  ;  Professor 
William  Ridgeway,  of  Cambridge,  the  famous 
historian  and  archaeologist,  for  letters  containing 
advice  that  has  proved  of  use ;  Mr  Theodore 
Andrea  Cook,  the  most  trustworthy  authority 
we  have  upon  the  history  of  the  Turf  and  the 


xx  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

modern  thoroughbred,  for  letters  of  introduction, 
etc.  ;  and  the  Directors  of  the  British  Museum 
and  the  Directors  of  the  National  Gallery  for 
allowing  photographs  to  be  taken  for  reproduc- 
tion. For  the  sake  of  convenience  the  centuries 
B.C.  are  alluded  to  in  the  same  way  that  centuries 
A.D.  are  alluded  to,  that  is,  one  century  in  ad- 
vance. Thus  550  B.C.  is  spoken  of  as  the  fourth 
century  B.C.  ;  250  A.D.  as  the  third  century  A.D., 
and  so  on. 


THE  HORSE  IN  HISTORY 

?4Ni ''-,  •  '. : '•• 

PART   I 

FROM  VERY  EARLY  TIMES  TO  THE   CONQUEST 

CHAPTER    I 

Rameses  ;  early  Egyptian  chariots  —  Horses  of  Babylon  and 
of  Libya — Erichthonius  ;  horse  of  Job  ;  horses  of  Solomon — Early 
circus  riding — Dancing  horses  of  the  Sybarites ;  the  Crotonians' 
stratagem  —  Homer's  "Iliad";  Menesthus  ;  early  wagering  — 
Patroclus  ;  Achilles  ;  Euphorbus  ;  Hyperenor  —  Horses  and 
chariots  of  the  Thracians — Ancient  Greeks  and  horsemanship ; 
decline  in  the  popularity  of  war  chariots  ;  inauguration  of  cavalry 
— Xenophon  on  horsemanship — White  horses 

HOUGH  according  to  the  more  trustworthy 
of  our  naturalists  hoofed  animals  do  not 
occur  until  the  Tertiary  Period  in  the  history  of 
mammals,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  from  an 
epoch  almost  "so  far  back  that  the  memory 
of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary,"  in  the 
literal  meaning  of  that  legal  phrase,  the  horse 
has  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  development 
of  the  human  race. 

Reference  is  made  incidentally  to  "the  horses 
of  Abraham  "  by  the  author  of  a  historical  novel 
published  recently  ;  but  then  even  the  most  pains- 


2  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

taking  of  writers  of  fiction  is  apt  to  err  in  minute 
points,  and  can  one  blame  him  when  the  lands 
over  which  he  travels,  and  the  subjects  of  which 
he  treats,  are  so  numerous  and  vary  so  widely  ? 
For  we  know  from  Genesis — also  from  certain 
ofb'er  later  ,'s'Oiiirces  that  may  be  depended  upon 
for  ,  accuracy— -  that  though  the  prophet  had 
creidft-ds'fojf  clivers':  kinds  bestowed  upon  him, 
yet  the  horse  probably  is  one  of  the  few  animals 
he  did  not  receive. 

Many  of  the  important  and  famous  victories 
won  by  Rameses — Sesostris  as  the  Greeks  termed 
him — and  by  other  monarchs  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  dynasties,  most  likely  would  have 
proved  crushing  defeats  but  for  the  assistance 
they  obtained  from  horses.  As  it  happened, 
however,  Rameses — whom  recent  writers  declare 
to  have  been  a  very  barefaced  "boomster" — 
succeeded  with  the  help  of  his  horses  in  march- 
ing triumphant  through  many  of  the  outlying 
territories  in  Africa  as  well  as  in  Asia. 


We  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Professor 
Flinders  Petrie  and  other  distinguished  historians 
that  Aahmes  I. — a  king  of  the  seventeenth 
dynasty  who  drove  out  the  Hyksos — reigned 
from  1587  to  1562  B.C.,  and  chariots  do  not  appear 
to  have  been  used  in  Egypt  prior  to  his  accession. 


EARLY   EGYPTIAN    CHARIOTS  3 

Indeed,  as  Professor  Owen  himself  has  pointed 
out,  horses  are  not  found  represented  on  any  of 
the  monuments  of  the  very  early  Egyptians,  so 
that  apparently  the  Egyptians  of  the  eighteenth 
dynasty,  whose  monuments  probably  are  the  first 
to  show  horses  and  chariots,  must  have  been  the 
first  to  turn  their  attention  seriously  to  the  em- 
ployment of  horses  for  useful  purposes. 

And  yet  from  further  statements  made  in 
Genesis  it  seems  certain  that  a  native  Egyptian 
king  who  flourished  somewhere  about  the  time 
of  Jacob  —  that  is  to  say  between  1800  and 
1 700  B.C. — owned  many  horses  and  chariots.  The 
Egyptians  apparently  did  not  mount  horses  until 
a  very  late  period  in  their  history,  and  even  the 
chariots  they  constructed  were,  until  many  years 
had  passed,  used  only  in  time  of  war.  The  lower 
classes,  if  one  may  call  them  so,  used  only  the 
ass,  a  beast  that  must  have  been  popular  amongst 
the  Egyptians  for  centuries  before  horses  were 
even  heard  of  in  Egypt. 

From  Genesis  we  gather  too  that  Pharaoh 
made  Joseph  drive  in  his  second  chariot ;  but  the 
Egyptians  who  bought  corn  from  Joseph  and 
gave  horses  in  exchange  for  it  belonged  probably 
to  the  well-to-do  class  that  in  time  of  war  was 
compelled  to  provide  the  king  with  almost  as 
many  horses  and  chariots  as  he  needed,  or  at  any 
rate  as  many  as  he  asked  for. 


4  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

In  the  records  of  Babylonia  it  is  stated  that 
horses  were  first  employed  in  the  great  city  about 
the  year  1500  B.C.  The  Libyans,  however,  must 
have  broken  horses  to  harness  some  centuries 
before  this,  and  indeed  learnt  to  ride  them  with 
some  skill,  for  it  is  proved  beyond  all  doubt  that 
the  women  of  Libya  rode  horses  astride  at  any 
rate  so  far  back  as  the  seventeenth  century  B.C., 
and  that  in  addition  to  this  horses  were  at  about 
that  time  being  driven  in  pairs  by  the  Libyans,  to 
whom  even  the  four-horse  chariot  cannot  have 
been  quite  unknown. 

It  has  not  been  proved,  from  what  I  have  been 
able  to  ascertain,  that  in  Neolithic  times  horses 
were  already  tamed,  but  some  remains  of  horses 
discovered  at  Walthamstow,  in  Essex,  are  said 
to  date  back  approximately  to  that  period  and  to 
indicate  for  that  reason  that  horses  were  domesti- 
cated in  the  Neolithic  Age. 

Evidence  does  exist,  however,  that  in  the 
Neolithic  and  Bronze  Ages  horses  of  a  type  that 
closely  resembled  that  of  the  horses  of  the 
Palaeolithic  Age  were  to  be  found  in  several  parts 
of  Europe.  The  Trojans,  as  most  of  us  know, 
bred  horses  very  largely  indeed,  so  much  so  that 
we  read  of  King  Erichthonius,  who  in  the 
thirteenth  century  B.C.  was  in  his  heyday,  that 
he  became  " richest  of  mortal  men"  and  the 
possessor  of  "  three  thousand  mares  which 


ERICHTHONIUS  5 

pastured  along  the  marsh  meadow,  rejoicing  in 
their  tender  foals,"  a  statement  that  indirectly 
recalls  the  fine  lines  in  Longfellow's  "  The 
Minnisink"  : 

"  They  buried  the  dark  chief— they  freed 
Beside  the  grave  his  battle  steed  ; 
And  swift  an  arrow  cleaves  its  way 
To  his  stern  heart !     One  piercing  neigh 
Arose, — and  on  the  dead  man's  plain 
The  rider  grasps  his  steed  again." 

Erichthonius,  according  to  Virgil,  was  the  first 
to  handle  a  four-in-hand,  for  in  the  third  book  of 
his  "  Georgics  "  we  are  told  how 

l<  Bold  Erichthonius  first  four  coursers  yok'd 
And  urg'd  the  chariot  as  the  axle  smok'd." 

Rather  a  risky  proceeding  and  one  from  which 
we  may  conclude  that  bold  Erichthonius  would 
have  flouted  the  axiom  promulgated  recently  by 
the  more  prudent  members  of  a  well-known  coach- 
ing club  that  "no  team  ought  to  be  driven  faster 
than  ten  miles  an  hour,  upon  an  average  " ! 


Though  allusions  to  the  horse  are  made  re- 
peatedly in  the  Bible,  they  give  us  little  or  no 
insight  as  to  the  horse's  influence  upon  the  nations 
and  their  development.  The  notorious  steed  of 
Job  that  when  among  the  trumpets  exclaimed 


6  THE  HORSE    IN   HISTORY 

"Ha!  Ha!"  and  then  winded  the  battle  afar  off 
and  fretted  itself  unduly  upon  hearing  "  the 
thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shouting"  has 
been  described  by  several  writers,  but  no  two  de- 
scriptions appear  to  tally. 

Solomon,  according  to  the  "  Book  of  Kings,  " 
must  have  owned  quite  a  large  stud,  for  we  read 
that  he  had  horses  brought  out  of  Egypt,  and 
that  a  chariot  came  up  and  went  out  for  six 
hundred  shekels  of  silver,  a  horse  for  a  hundred 
and  fifty,  "  and  so  for  all  the  kings  of  the  Hittites, 
and  for  the  kings  of  Syria,  did  he  bring  them 
out. "  The  Hittites,  whom  Professor  Jensen 
assures  us  were  Indo-Europeans,  are  also  shown 
to  have  had  horses  when  they  made  their  way 
into  Northern  Palestine,  probably  at  some  period 
prior  to  1400  B.C.,  but  trustworthy  information 
about  the  horses  and  how  the  Hittites  treated 
them  is  not  obtainable. 

As  for  the  horses  in  the  Mycenean  Period — 
the  Bronze  Age  of  Greece — the  monuments  of 
that  epoch  bear  testimony  to  the.  esteem  in 
which  they  were  held.  The  indigenous  people 
of  Greece  were  presumably  the  Pelasgians,  and 
these  monuments  remain  to  bear  testimony  that 
such  a  people  once  existed. 

In  a  like  manner  do  the  gravestones  of  the 
Acropolis  of  Mycenae  bear  indisputable  evidence, 
for  upon  three  of  them  at  least  are  to  be  seen 
sculptured  in  low  relief  a  chariot,  a  pair  of  horses, 


EARLY   CIRCUS   RIDING  7 

and  a  driver,  the  date  of  this  particular  sculpture 
being  approximately  the  fourteenth  century  B.C. 


It  seems  practically  beyond  dispute  that  before 
the  year  1000  B.C.  no  people  rode  on  horseback 
except  the  Libyans,  though  chariots  must  have 
been  used  quite  2000  years  before  that.  Yet  by 
the  time  Homer  wrote  his  poems  horsemanship 
was  becoming  common  amongst  a  section  of  the 
Greeks. 

Indeed  by  that  time  feats  of  skill  on  horseback 
upon  a  par  with  the  antics  we  see  performed  to- 
day in  circuses  were  at  least  known,  and  prob- 
ably they  were  often  watched  and  greatly  liked. 
Listen,  for  instance,  to  the  following  Homeric 
simile — the  translation  is  almost  literal  : — 

"As  when  a  man  that  well  knows  how  to  ride 
harnesses  up  four  chosen  horses,  and  springing 
from  the  ground  dashes  to  the  great  city  along 
the  public  highway,  and  crowds  of  men  and 
women  look  on  in  wonder,  while  he  with  all 
confidence,  as  his  steeds  fly  on,  keeps  leaping 
from  one  to  another." 

There  are  two  references  at  least  in  Homer 
to  "four  male  horses  yoked  together,"  but  the 
practice  of  driving  four-in-hand  certainly  was  not 
common  in  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  or  probably 
until  long  after.  The  above  reference,  however, 


8  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

to  feats  of  skill  performed  on  horseback,  recalls  to 
mind  a  story,  probably  more  or  less  true,  that  has 
to  do  with  the  luxurious  people  of  Sybaris,  in 
Southern  Italy. 

In  the  early  centuries  before  Christ,  so  it  is 
related,  this  people  trained  all  its  horses  to  dance 
to  the  sound  of  music,  to  the  music  of  flutes  in 
particular.  The  inhabitants  of  Croton  having 
heard  of  this,  and  being  sworn  enemies  of  the 
Sybarites,  determined  to  take  advantage  of  the 
information  and  attempt  to  conquer  their  foe 
with  the  aid  of  strategy. 

For  this  reason  they  provided  all  the  musicians 
in  their  own  army  with  flutes  in  place  of  trumpets 
and  the  other  instruments  they  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  using,  and  then  without  delay  declared 
war  upon  the  Sybarites. 

The  latter,  to  do  them  justice,  responded  at 
once,  in  spite  of  the  condition  of  lethargy  to 
which  the  life  of  luxury  they  had  been  leading  was 
supposed  to  have  reduced  them.  No  sooner  did 
they  approach  the  Crotonian  lines,  however,  than 
"a  great  part  of  the  army,"  as  we  are  told,  "set 
up  a  merry  tune,"  which  had  the  effect  of  stamped- 
ing the  Sybarites'  horses,  for  "they  instantly 
threw  off  their  riders  and  began  to  skip  and 
dance." 

As  a  natural  consequence  the  Sybarite  army 
was  taken  at  a  disadvantage  and  quickly  routed 
with  great  slaughter,  "very  many  horses  being 


HOMER'S    "  ILIAD  "  9 

killed  during  the  engagement,   to  their  owners' 
dismay  and  grief." 


This  strange  story  may  be  in  a  measure 
exaggerated,  but  probably  it  is  based  on  truth, 
in  which  case  it  proves  that  the  Greeks  of  Magna 
Graecia  at  any  rate  made  use  of  cavalry  before 
the  rest  had  attempted  to  do  so.  Also  we  know 
that  in  the  year  510  B.C.  the  Crotonians  destroyed 
Sybaris  entirely. 

The  Assyrians  too,  at  about  this  period,  evi- 
dently had  well-appointed  cavalry,  for  Ezekiel 
speaks  of  their  being  "  clothed  in  blue,  captains 
and  rulers,  all  of  them  desirable  young  men, 
horsemen  riding  upon  horses,"  and  goes  on  to 
give  particulars  which,  in  so  far  as  they  relate  to 
the  mode  of  life  in  vogue  with  these  desirable 
young  men,  are  calculated  to  shock  the  suscepti- 
bilities of  prudish  persons,  and  to  amuse  others. 

In  the  light  of  the  Higher  Criticism  Homer's 
"  Iliad "  is  believed  to  have  been  written  by 
various  hands,  and  incidentally  the  Criticism 
throws  useful  light  upon  the  horse  in  his  rela- 
tion to  the  history  of  the  nations  known  to  have 
flourished  in  the  very  early  centuries  before  Christ. 

One  need  not  here  describe  such  steeds  as 
Agamemnon's  mare,  swift  ^Ethe,  that  was  given 
to  him  by  his  vassal,  Echepolus  of  Sicylon,  and 


10  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

subsequently  driven  in  the  chariot  race  by 
Menelaus  ;  or  Phallas,  the  horse  of  Heraclios  ; 
or  the  horses  of  the  Pylian  breed  of  which  Homer 
speaks  at  length  ;  or  Galathe,  Ethon,  Podarge  or 
any  of  the  other  steeds  of  which  Priam's  eldest 
son,  "  magnanimous  and  noble  Hector,"  was  so 
justly  proud.  Also  the  horses  of  mythology  do 
not  possess  great  interest  for  the  majority  of 
modern  readers  other  than  classical  scholars. 

That  Homer  himself,  however,  had  sound 
knowledge  of  the  qualifications  which  go  to  make 
up  what  in  latter-day  English  we  probably  should 
term  a  " finished  charioteer"  is  shown  by  the 
following  rather  well-known  lines  that  here  are 
translated  almost  literally : — 

"  But  he  who  in  his  chariot  and  his  steeds 
Trusts  only,  wanders  here  and  there 
Unsteady,  while  his  coursers  loosely  rein'd 
Roam  wide  the  field ;  not  so  the  charioteer 
Of  sound  intelligence  ;  he,  though  he  drive 
Inferior  steeds,  looks  ever  to  the  goal 
While  close  he  clips,  not  ignorant  to  check 
His  coursers  at  the  first,  but  with  tight  rein 
Ruling  his  own,  and  watching  those  before." 

Menesthus,  emphatically  one  of  the  finest  of 
the  many  fine  riders  spoken  of  in  the  "  Iliad,"  or, 
as  Homer  himself  describes  him,  "  foremost  in 
equestrian  fame,"  is  typical  of  the  horsemen  of 
that  period. 

In  the  "  Iliad"  too  we  find  what  I  believe  I 


EARLY   WAGERING  n 

am  right  in  stating  to  be  the  first  direct  histori- 
cal allusion  to  wagering  on  horse  races.  But 
the  medium  current  on  racecourses  in  those  days 
was  not  coin.  The  odds  apparently  were  laid 
in  " kitchen  utensils"  —  as  a  lad  with  whom  I 
was  at  school  once  construed  the  line,  to  his 
subsequent  discomfiture — namely,  cauldrons  and 
tripods. 

Such,  at  least,  we  are  led  to  infer  from  the 
paragraph  in  the  twenty-third  book  of  the  "  Iliad," 
which,  according  to  William  Cowper's  blank  verse 
translation,  edited  by  Robert  Southey,  runs  some- 
what as  follows : — 

"  Come  now — a  tripod  let  us  wager  each, 
Or  cauldron,  and  let  Agamemnon  judge 
Whose  horses  lead,  that,  losing,  thou  mayst  learn.  " 

Or  more  euphoniously,  as  Lord  Derby  has  it : 

"  Wilt  thou  a  cauldron  or  a  tripod  stake 
And  Agamemnon,  Atreus'  son,  appoint  the  umpire 
To  decide  whose  steeds  are  first  ?  " 

The  cauldrons  and  tripods  referred  to  were 
of  course  of  great  value,  and,  as  trophies,  highly 
prized  by  competitors  in  the  races  and  other 
competitions  calling  for  a  display  of  skill  and 
daring. 

There  is  another  allusion  in  the  "  Iliad  "  to  the 
presentation  of  a  tripod  as  a  great  reward  for 
valour.  It  occurs  in  the  eighth  book,  and  the 
passage  goes  more  or  less  like  this  : 


12  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

"  Let  but  the  Thunderer  and  Minerva  grant 
The  pillage  of  fair  Ilium  to  the  Greeks, 
And  I  will  give  to  thy  victorious  hand, 
After  my  own,  the  noblest  recompense, 
A  tripod  or  a  chariot  with  its  steeds, 
Or  some  fair  captive  to  partake  thy  bed." 

I  recollect  how  at  school  this  passage,  with 
several  others,  used  to  be  rigorously  excluded 
when  Homer  was  being  construed,  with  the  result 
that  Kelly's  famous  "  Keys  to  the  Classics  "  used 
afterwards  to  be  produced  surreptitiously,  and  the 
"censored"  lines  turned  carefully  into  English. 


From  what  Homer  tells  us  elsewhere,  and  from 
additional  sources,  we  may  conclude  that  of  all 
the  races  that  bred  horses  and  took  just  pride 
in  them  in  the  early  centuries  before  Christ  the 
Thracians  were  probably  the  most  renowned. 

The  brilliant  horsemanship  of  "  noble  Patroclus 
of  equestrian  fame,"  the  amiable  and  staunch 
friend  of  Achilles,  must  not  be  passed  unmen- 
tioned ;  nor  the  deeds  of  prowess  that  are  at- 
tributed to  Euphorbus,  "  famous  for  equestrian 
skill,  for  spearmanship,  and  in  the  rapid  race  past 
all  of  equal  age  "  ;  nor  yet  the  deeds  of  Hypere- 
nor  whose  skill  in  handling  horses  may  be  likened 
to  the  skill  of  Rarey  in  our  own  time. 

The   following  lines  from  the   "  Iliad "  are  of 


HARNESS   IN    HOMER'S   DAY          13 

interest  here  because  they  serve  to  indicate  to 
some  extent  the  style  of  harness  and  useless 
trappings  that  must  have  been  in  vogue  amongst 
the  wealthy  in  Homer's  day  : — 

"  So  Hera,  the  goddess  queen,  daughter  of 
great  Cronos,  went  her  way  to  harness  the  gold- 
frontleted  steeds ;  and  Hebe  quickly  put  to  the 
car  the  curved  wheels  of  bronze,  eight  spoked, 
upon  their  axletree  of  iron." 

Then: 

"  Golden  is  their  felloe,  imperishable,  and  tires 
of  bronze  are  fitted  thereover,  a  marvel  to  look 
upon ;  and  the  naves  are  of  silver,  to  turn 
about  on  either  side.  And  the  body  of  the  car 
is  plaited  tight  with  gold  and  silver  straps,  and 
two  rails  run  round  about  it. 

"  And  a  silver  pole  stood  out  therefrom  ;  upon 
the  end  she  bound  the  fair  golden  yoke,  and  set 
thereon  the  fair  breast-straps  of  gold,  and  Hera 
led  beneath  the  yoke  the  horses,  fleet  of  foot,  and 
hungered  for  strife  and  the  battle-cry." 

It  has  been  argued  that  about  the  time  of 
Homer  gold  and  silver  were  deemed  to  be  com- 
paratively of  small  value,  and  that  therefore  the 
trappings  described  were  not  so  costly  as  one 
naturally  would  conclude  they  must  have  been. 

Upon  this  point  opinions  are  about  equally 
divided. 

Professor  Ridgeway  tells  us  that  by  comparing 
the  foregoing  description  with  actual  specimens 


i4  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

of  chariots  and  horse  trappings  that  have  been 
found  in  Egypt  we  can  form  an  accurate  im- 
pression of  the  appearance  that  was  presented 
by  the  original  old  chariots,  and  form  also  an 
idea  of  the  way  they  were  put  together,  while 
the  plaiting  with  straps  of  gold  and  silver  recalls 
at  once  the  floor  of  the  Egyptian  chariot  with  its 
plaited  leather  meshwork  —  probably  the  fore- 
runner of  leather  springs. 


Though  Odysseus  and  Diomede  are  known  to 
have  mounted  their  Thracian  horses,  we  have  it 
on  irrefutable  evidence  that  at  this  period  chariots 
were  still  generally  used,  so  that  most  likely 
horses  were  ridden  but  seldom. 

Indeed  the  Homeric  poems  provide  us  with 
probably  as  much  authentic  information  as  to  the 
methods  of  managing  and  breeding  horses  that 
were  in  vogue  in  Greece,  in  Thrace,  and  in  Asia 
Minor  in  the  very  early  years  before  Christ,  as 
any  half-dozen  other  volumes  put  together  that 
purport  to  deal  with  the  ways  and  customs  of  a 
period  of  which,  when  all  is  said,  little  enough  is 
known. 

Naturally  the  Thracians  had  in  those  days 
some  of  the  best  horses  that  could  be  procured, 
while  those  they  drove  in  their  war  chariots  are 
said  to  have  been  quite  unrivalled.  That  they 


THRACIAN    HORSES   AND    CHARIOTS       15 

possessed  very  many  chariots  is  proved  by 
Homer's  realistic  account  of  the  slaying  of 
Rhesus,  the  Thracian  king,  with  a  dozen  or 
so  of  his  bravest  followers,  and  the  episode  in 
connection  with  that  incident. 

Indeed  when  Odysseus  and  Diomede  had 
captured  Dolon,  the  Trojan  spy,  the  latter  at 
once  declared  that  there  were  "also  Thracians, 
new-comers,  at  the  furthest  point  apart  from  the 
rest,  and  amongst  them  their  king,  Rhesus,  son 
of  Eioneus,"  adding  that  his  were  "the  fairest 
horses  that  ever  I  beheld,  and  the  greatest, 
whiter  than  snow,  and  for  speed  like  the  winds. 
His  chariot  too  is  fashioned  well  with  gold  and 
silver,  and  golden  is  his  armour  that  he  brought 
with  him,  marvellous,  a  wonder  to  behold." 

Apparently  most  of  the  horses  bred  by  the 
Acheans  at  about  this  time  were  either  dun- 
coloured  or  dapple.  Xanthos  signifies  Dun,  and 
balios  dapple ;  but  then  we  have  to  remember 
that  xanthos  was  used  frequently  to  denote  also 
the  colour  of  gold. 

Achilles'  steeds  were  mostly  dapple-dun,  and 
they  had  more  or  less  heavy  manes.  They 
belonged  most  likely  to  the  breed  so  popular 
among  the  Sigynnae  of  central  Europe  about  the 
fifth  century  B.C.  Certainly  Homer  makes  it 
plain  that  in  the  early  Iron  Age  horses  were  bred 
in  many  parts  of  Greece ;  that,  though  driving 
was  a  common  practice,  riding  was  indulged  in 


1 6  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

but  rarely;  that  cavalry  in  battle  was  quite  un- 
known ;  and  lastly  that  though  the  heroes,  as  they 
were  called,  fought  mainly  in  chariots,  the  great 
body  of  the  army  consisted  of  well-trained  infantry. 
As  time  went  on  horsemanship  apparently 
came  to  be  appreciated  more  and  more,  for  we 
read  that  about  the  year  648  B.C. — the  thirty-third 
Olympiad — "  a  race  for  full-grown  riding  horses  " 
was  inaugurated  in  addition  to  the  chariot  races, 
and  there  appear  to  have  been  plenty  of  entries. 
Then  though  the  war  chariot  had  disappeared 
almost  completely,  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Persian  Wars,  its  place  was  not  taken  by  well- 
appointed  and  well-equipped  cavalry  until  some 
years  later. 


Though  little  attention  need  be  paid  to  the 
Greek  legend  that  Pegasus  was  the  first  horse 
ever  ridden — a  legend  not  mentioned  in  Homer — 
it  nevertheless  is  interesting  to  know  that  this 
historic  animal  was  supposed  to  have  been  foaled 
in  the  Bronze  Age,  and  in  Libya.  That  naturally 
would  have  been  prior  to  the  arrival  of  the  fair- 
haired  Acheans  from  Central  Europe,  so  one 
need  not  be  astonished,  as  several  writers 
obviously  are,  at  finding  that  when  these  large- 
limbed  Acheans  first  appeared  the  Greeks  already 
knew  how  to  ride. 


GREEKS   AND   HORSEMANSHIP         17 

At  the  same  time  they  seldom  did  ride  their 
dun-coloured  little  cobs,  preferring,  apparently, 
to  drive  them  in  pairs  in  chariots.  That  the 
Libyans  were  finished  horsemen  centuries  before 
the  Greeks  learnt  how  to  ride  has  already  been 
mentioned  ;  though  whether  or  no  the  Greeks 
were  first  taught  horsemanship  by  the  Libyans 
is  a  question  still  debated  by  students  of  ancient 
history. 


In  the  north-west  of  Asia  Minor  the  Libyans 
had  dark  bay  horses  with  a  white  star  upon  the 
forehead  about  the  year  1000  B.C.,  and  a  hundred 
or  so  years  later  horses  of  this  breed  were  largely 
imported  into  various  parts  of  Asia  Minor. 

Indeed  some  of  the  more  enthusiastic  of  the 
modern  historians  who  have  studied  closely  the 
descent  of  horses  from  generation  to  generation 
persist  in  maintaining  that  even  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  modern  horses  with  this  white  star 
upon  the  forehead  have  in  their  veins  some 
Libyan  blood !  How  this  can  well  be  when  we 
know  almost  without  doubt  that  until  towards  the 
close  of  the  Bronze  or  the  beginning  of  the  Iron 
Age  the  horse  was  hardly  made  use  of  at  all  by 
the  inhabitants  of  these  islands,  I  leave  it  to 
more  learned  men  to  decide  among  themselves. 

It  is  remarkable  that  whereas  from  very  early 


1 8  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

times  horses  of  Asiatic- European  breeds  have 
proved  more  or  less  unmanageable  except  when 
bitted,  the  horses  of  Libya  are  known  to  have 
been  controlled  quite  easily  by  nosebands  only. 
Some  of  the  nosebands,  or  rather  halters,  used  in 
early  times  were  made  of  plaited  straw,  and  to- 
day halters  of  almost  similar  make  and  pattern 
are  still  employed  in  certain  of  the  more  remote 
parts  of  Ireland. 

The  bits  found  most  suitable  for  Asiatic- 
European  horses  were  made  first  of  all  of  horn, 
then  chiefly  of  bone,  later  of  copper,  and  finally 
of  bronze  and  iron.  Homer,  in  his  "  Iliad, " 
alludes  to  bits  of  bronze  placed  between  the 
horse's  jaws,  and  this  probably  is  one  of  the  first 
instances  of  literary  evidence  we  have  that  a 
thousand  years  before  Christ's  birth  horses  were 
controlled  by  bits. 

Of  course  Xenophon  has  much  to  say  upon 
the  question  of  bits  and  bitting,  and  his  capital 
treatise  on  horsemanship  throws  valuable  light 
also  upon  the  horse  in  its  relation  to  the  history 
of  that  epoch,  as  we  shall  see.  Upon  one  point 
in  particular  in  this  connection  Xenophon  lays 
great  stress.  He  maintains  it  to  be  imperative 
that  every  horseman  shall  possess  two  bits  for 
his  horse  or  horses,  one  with  links  of  moderate 
size,  and  one  with  sharp  and  heavy  links,  bidding 
us  at  the  same  time  remember  that  "  whatever 
sorts  of  bits  be  used,  they  should  be  flexible,  for 


XENOPHON    ON    HORSEMANSHIP       19 

where  a  horse  seizes  a  rigid  bit  he  has  the  whole 
of  it  fast  between  his  teeth  .  .  .  but  the  other  sort 
is  similar  to  a  chain,  for  whatever  part  of  it  be 
taken  hold  of,  that  part  alone  remains  unbent — 
the  rest  hangs." 

So  that  apparently  bits  single-  and  double- 
jointed,  and  therefore  flexible,  were  used  in  the 
early  Iron  Age  by  the  people  of  North- Western 
Europe. 


By  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  B.C. 
many,  though  not  all,  of  the  Greek  and  the 
Macedonian  mounted  soldiers  had  come  to  con- 
sider some  sort  of  covering  for  the  horse's  back 
to  be  necessary  to  their  equipment ;  and  so  long 
previously  as  the  eighth  century  B.C.  horse  cloths 
had  been  adopted  by  the  Assyrians,  a  people 
sufficiently  wise  to  realise  from  the  first  that  a 
horse  with  something  on  his  back  is  more  com- 
fortable to  sit  upon  than  one  without. 

These  early  races  probably  would  have  em- 
ployed cavalry  several  centuries  sooner  than  they 
eventually  did,  but  for  the  difficulty  they 
experienced  in  arming  themselves  to  their  com- 
plete satisfaction  when  mounted.  Such  peoples, 
for  instance,  as  the  Egyptians,  the  Assyrians,  and 
the  Greeks  of  the  Mycenean  or  Bronze  Age, 
habitually  protected  themselves  with  the  aid  of 


20  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

large  and  oblong  shields  when  they  fought  on 
foot,  but  on  horseback  these  shields  proved 
cumbersome.  Possibly  that  was  the  reason  that 
when  the  Normans  and  other  Teutonic  races 
began  to  fight  on  horseback  they  so  soon  dis- 
carded their  round  and  clumsy  shields  in  favour 
of  a  shield  broad  at  the  top  and  tapering  down- 
ward, the  shape  of  shield  we  see  on  the  Bayeux 
tapestry. 

With  regard  to  the  war  chariots  in  use  before 
this  time,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  even  the  very 
first  employed  had  not  wheels  cut  from  solid 
blocks  as  some  are  represented  as  having,  though 
possibly  the  most  primitive  of  the  agricultural 
chariots  were  so  constructed. 

For  the  rest,  the  early  chariots  of  the  Egyptians 
of  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  and  in  use  in  India 
under  the  Vedic  Aryans,  and  amongst  the 
Hittites,  the  Assyrians,  the  Persians,  the  Libyans, 
the  Mycenean  Greeks,  the  Homeric  Acheans, 
the  Gauls  of  Northern  Italy  and  in  Gaul  itself; 
also  among  the  ancient  Britons  and  the  early 
Irish,  had  wheels  with  a  hub,  a  felloe,  and  spokes, 
the  latter  from  four  to  twelve  in  number. 

And  inasmuch  as  this  information  bears  in- 
directly upon  the  horse  in  his  relation  to  early 
historical  records,  it  is  not  out  of  place  here. 


WHITE   HORSES  21 

To  return  again  to  the  question  of  harness, 
we  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Herodotus  that 
"the  Greeks  learned  from  the  Libyans  to  yoke 
four  horses  to  a  chariot,"  and  we  know  already 
that  before  the  time  of  Herodotus,  who  wrote 
in  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  the  Greeks  had  found 
Libyans  riding  astride  horses  and  driving  some- 
times two  -  horse  and  occasionally  four  -  horse 
chariots.  At  that  time — about  632  B.C. — the 
Greeks  were  planting  Cyrene. 

White  horses  were  in  ancient  days  at  all  times 
largely  in  demand  among  the  people  of  the 
various  nations  ;  and  while  Pindar  alludes  inci- 
dentally to  white  horses  being  ridden  by  the 
Thessalians  in  his  time,  Sophocles,  writing  half-a- 
century  or  so  later,  describes  a  Thessalian  chariot 
that  was  drawn  by  white  horses. 

One  of  the  regions  in  which  white  horses  were 
bred,  probably  in  great  numbers,  was  the  banks 
of  the  Caspian  where  the  River  Bug  flows  from 
it,  for  Herodotus  states  clearly  that  "around  a 
great  lake  from  which  the  River  Hypanis  (called 
now  the  Bug)  issued,  there  grazed  wild  white 
horses."  Those  particular  animals  possibly  may 
have  been  in  reality  only  tarpans  in  their  winter 
coats,  and  not  actually  horses.  The  point  has 
been  argued  more  than  once,  but  has  never 
been  quite  settled.  A  white  horse  famous  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  fifth  or  early  in  the 
fourth  century  was  Kantake,  of  the  notorious 


22  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Prince  Gautama,  but  nothing  need  be  said 
about  it  here,  trustworthy  records  being  unpro- 
curable. 

The  great  cities  of  Magna  Graecia — Sybaris, 
Tarentum,  Croton,  and  so  on — obviously  had  for- 
midable cavalry  in  the  sixth  century  B.C.;  Sicily 
and  Southern  Italy  being  almost  equally  renowned 
for  the  riding  horses  obtainable  there.  The 
statagem  to  which  the  Crotonians  had  recourse 
in  510  B.C.  to  bring  about  the  fall  of  Sybaris  has 
been  described,  and  it  is  said  that  for  some  years 
prior  to  the  destruction  of  the  city  some  five  or 
six  thousand  of  the  inhabitants  were  in  the  habit 
of  riding  in  procession  on  horseback  upon  the 
occasions  of  the  great  festivals  held  there. 


CHAPTER    II 

Increasing  interest  in  horses— Herodotus  ;  Thucydides  ;  war 
chariots  of  the  Persians — Horses  represented  on  coinage — Wooden 
horse  of  Troy — The  Parthenon  frieze  ;  Greek  art — Plato  ;  white 
horses — The  procession  of  Xerxes ;  horses  and  men  sacrificed — 
The  horse  of  Darius  —  Horse  racing  introduced  among  the 
Romans  —  Xenophon  and  Simo  —  Early  horseshoes,  bits  and 
bitting  ;  ancient  methods  of  mounting 

A  S  we  gradually  approach  the  time  of  Christ 

^  we  find  increasing  interest  being  taken   in 

horses  by  the  kings  and  great  chiefs  of  different 

countries,  for  the  value  of  cavalry  in  war  was  now 

quickly  becoming  manifest. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Homeric  or  Iron  Age 
the  Celts  of  Noricum  and  the  Danube,  though 
still  retaining  chariots,  had  begun  to  ride  on 
horseback,  and  by  the  third  century  B.C.  these 
Celtic  tribes  already  possessed  well-trained  and 
very  formidable  cavalry.  As  a  natural  result  the 
demand  for  still  better  horses  grew  steadily,  and 
soon  it  became  common  to  import  horses  into  the 
Upper  Balkan,  and  countries  beyond  the  Alps, 
from  the  Mediterranean  area. 

Perhaps  the  best  description  of  a  chariot  race 

at    Delphi    is    to    be    found    in    the    Electro,    of 

Sophocles  —  Sophocles    flourished    in    the   third 

century  B.C.     At  about  the  same  period  Hero- 

23 


24  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

dotus  tells  us  that  the  Sigynnae,  the  only  tribe 
north  of  the  Danube  that  he  mentions  by  name, 
had  "horses  with  shaggy  hair  five  fingers  long  all 
over  their  bodies."  These  horses  were  "  small 
and  flat-nosed  and  incapable  of  carrying  men, 
but  when  yoked  under  a  chariot  were  very 
swift." 

Consequently  the  natives  drove  them  largely 
in  chariots. 

Though  Herodotus  does  not  allude  to  the 
colour  of  these  small,  flat-nosed  horses,  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  dun  was  the  colour  most 
prevalent  at  about  this  time.  With  regard  to 
the  horses  of  Northern  Britain  Dio  Cassius  says 
that  two  of  the  chief  tribes — namely,  the  Cale- 
donians and  the  Maeatae — "  went  to  war  in 
chariots,  as  their  horses  were  small  and  fleet," 
while  when  the  Gauls  passed  into  Italy,  towards 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  they 
drove  chariots  but  did  not  ride,  in  which  re- 
spect they  resembled  the  Sigynnae  north  of  the 
Danube. 

Thucydides,  writing  at  the  end  of  the  third 
century  B.C.,  speaks  with  interest  on  the  subject 
of  horses'  hoofs,  pointing  out  that  the  reason  so 
many  of  the  cavalry  horses  of  the  Athenians 
went  lame  towards  the  close  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War  was  not  that  they  had  been  wounded,  as 
some  historians  have  averred,  but  owing  simply 
to  their  not  being  shod.  This  was  after  the 


WAR   CHARIOT   OF  THE   PERSIANS      25 

Spartans  had  occupied  Decelea  and  suffered  their 
heavy  loss. 

Alcibiades,  in  the  third  century  B.C.,  had  many 
horses,  and  in  the  sixth  book  of  "  Thucydides  "  he 
tells  us  in  his  speech  that  he  sent  into  the  lists 
no  less  than  seven  chariots,  adding  that  "  no 
other  man  ever  did  the  like  "  ;  and  later  he  goes 
on  to  mention  that  he  won  the  first,  second  and 
fourth  prizes. 

Apparently  Alcibiades  knew  his  world,  and 
if  so  it  would  seem  that  his  world  was  not 
unlike  the  world  we  know  to-day,  for  in  another 
passage  he  sententiously  yet  philosophically  tells 
us  that  we  "must  not  expect  to  be  recognised 
by  our  acquaintance  when  we  are  down  in  the 
world  ;  and  on  the  same  principle  why  should 
anyone  complain  when  treated  with  disdain  by 
the  more  fortunate  ?  " 

This  particular  sentence  is  according  to  the 
translation  of  "  Thucydides  "  by  the  late  Professor 
Jowett,  who  leaves  us  to  infer  what  we  please 
concerning  the  sociological  views  held  by 
Alcibiades. 

Among  the  first  to  employ  war  chariots  with 
scythes  intended  to  mow  down  the  enemy  were 
the  Persians,  if  historical  records  are  to  be  trusted, 
and  we  read  that  the  chariots  they  used  in  the 
battle  of  Cunaxa,  in  401  B.C.,  were  provided  with 
sharp  blades,  while  in  after  years  the  people  of  Syria 
had  war  chariots  with  spears  as  well  as  scythes. 


26  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Thus  in  the  bloody  battle  fought  between 
Eumenes  of  Pergamus,  and  Antiochus  of  Syria, 
to  mention  but  a  single  instance,  Antiochus  had 
four-horse  chariots  with  scythes  and  spears  in  his 
front  line  of  battle,  whereupon  Eumenes  purposely 
"created  terror"  amongst  these  horses,  with  the 
result  that  they  turned  suddenly  and  dashed  back 
into  the  lines  of  Antiochus,  spreading  devastation 
and  death  on  all  sides  in  their  own  ranks. 

Certain  it  is  that  upon  that  occasion  many 
horses  were  cut  to  pieces  by  the  scythes,  but  for 
a  full  and  graphic  description  of  what  happened 
I  must  refer  the  reader  to  the  thirty-seventh 
chapter  of  the  immortal  "  Livy." 


The  esteem  in  which  horses,  especially  war 
horses,  were  held  in  the  centuries  that  immedi- 
ately preceded  the  coming  of  Christ  may  to  some 
extent  be  gathered  from  the  prominence  accorded 
to  them  when  coins  to  be  used  as  the  circulat- 
ing medium  began  to  come  into  general  vogue. 
Thus  on  the  first  of  the  Carthaginian  coins — they 
were  struck  in  the  third  century  B.C. — we  find 
represented  a  horse  upon  one  side,  a  palm-tree 
upon  the  other,  while  on  the  coins  of  the  im- 
portant Sicilian  settlement,  Panormus,  a  horse  is 
shown. 

I  have  tried  to  disentangle  from  a  mass  of  only 


GREEK   COINS   SHOWING    HORSES    IN    THE   EARLY    CENTURIES    BEFORE    CHRIST 

7,  j.   Agrigentmn.    2,  4,  5,  6,  7,9.  Syracuse.    8.  Asia  Minor  and  Greece.     Philip  of  Afacedon 
10.  Hellenistic  period.    Hiero  of  Sicily 


HORSES  REPRESENTED  ON  COINAGE      27 

semi-trustworthy  records  the  true  origin  of  the 
well-known  saying  :  "  He  has  Seius'  horse  in  his 
stable."  So  far  as  one  can  ascertain,  it  is  trace- 
able to  the  fates  of  the  various  ill-starred  owners 
of  the  horses  of  Gnaeus  Seius,  from  Seius  down  to 
Anthony.  Plutarch  says  that  the  famous  Philip 
II.  loved  to  commemorate  his  Olympian  victories 
by  stamping  the  figure  of  a  steed  upon  some  of 
his  coins,  and  certainly  he  was  devoted  both  to 
horses  and  horse  racing.  We  read  too  that 
between  359  and  336  B.C.  he  entered  both  chariots 
and  riding  horses  for  the  Olympian  competi- 
tions. 

Similarly  a  proportion  of  the  Sicilian  coinage 
bore  the  impression  of  a  horse,  and  many  of  the 
great  chariot  races  are  commemorated  on  coins. 
Several  of  the  Agrigentine  coins,  for  instance, 
show  a  quadriga  driven  by  winged  Nike,  in  com- 
memoration probably  of  the  victory  of  Exaenetus, 
while  some  of  the  coinage  of  Syracuse  dating 
back  so  far  as  500  B.C.,  and  even  earlier,  repre- 
sents a  four-horse  chariot  upon  the  face  of  the 
tetradrachms,  and,  on  the  didrachms,  a  man 
riding  one  horse  and  leading  another.  Some  of 
the  drachms  show  merely  a  man  mounted. 

Indeed  we  are  told  that  Gela  not  only  prided 
herself  on  her  victories  won  on  the  race  track, 
but  upon  what  was,  of  course,  of  more  im- 
portance— her  splendid  cavalry.  A  number  of 
her  coins  represent  a  four-horse  chariot,  some 


28  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

a  two-horse  chariot,  and  occasionally  a  wounded 
foe  being  speared  to  death  by  a  horseman,  gal- 
loping or  stationary.  These  coins  probably  are 
among  the  earliest  of  their  kind  ever  struck. 

The  most  ancient  of  all  representations  of 
Sicilian  horses,  however,  which  serve  to  prove 
that  the  Sicilians  were  beyond  doubt  a  horse- 
loving  race,  is  the  quadriga  on  one  of  the  metopes 
of  the  archaic  temple  of  Silenus,  believed  to  have 
been  founded  in  628  B.C. 

While  upon  the  subject  of  sculpture,  casual 
reference  must  be  made  to  the  notorious  Wooden 
Horse  of  Troy,  described  fully  in  Homer  and 
alluded  to  centuries  later  by  Virgil,  the  horse  of 
which  the  famous  sculptor,  Strongylon,  made  a 
model  in  bronze  towards  probably  the  close  of 
the  fifth  century. 

The  story  of  this  horse  hardly  needs  repetition, 
but  briefly  it  is  to  the  effect  that  soon  after 
Hector's  death  Ulysses  commanded  Epeios  to 
construct  a  wooden  horse  of  great  size  that  osten- 
sibly was  to  be  used  as  an  offering  to  the  gods  to 
please  them  and  thus  ensure  a  safe  voyage  back 
to  Greece. 

Unsuspectful  of  treachery,  the  Trojans  received 
the  great  effigy  and  brought  it  into  their  city; 
whereupon,  in  the  dead  of  night,  the  Greek 
soldiers  hidden  within  it  crept  cautiously  out, 
pounced  silently  upon  the  Trojan  guards  and  slew 
them  before  they  could  defend  themselves ;  then 


WOODEN   HORSE   OF   TROY  29 

opened  the  gates  of  Troy,  let  in  their  own  soldiery, 
and  finally  set  fire  to  the  city. 

Menelaus  is  said  to  have  been  among  the 
Greeks  concealed  in  the  wooden  horse. 

If  evidence  in  addition  to  that  already  given 
be  needed  to  prove  that  the  ancient  Greeks  held 
horses  in  high  esteem,  and  that  the  Grecian  con- 
quests were  probably  in  a  great  measure  due  to  the 
help  afforded  by  the  possession  of  horses,  notice 
has  only  to  be  taken  of  the  vastness  of  the  space 
occupied  by  the  Athenian  cavalry  shown  on  the 
Parthenon  frieze. 

Indeed  at  about  this  period  probably  no  accom- 
plishment was  quite  so  highly  esteemed  as  horse- 
manship, with  the  result  that  the  wealthy  classes 
began  to  pay  special  attention  to  the  training 
their  sons  received  in  it,  while  treatises  were 
published  upon  the  art  and  how  best  it  might 
be  acquired. 

The  first  horsemen  of  whom  we  have  indis- 
putably authentic  records  invariably  rode  bare- 
back, and,  with  the  exception  of  the  Libyans, 
used  some  sort  of  bit.  According  to  Xenophon 
— and  apparently  no  other  historian  of  his  time  is 
so  thoroughly  to  be  trusted  for  strict  accuracy — 
the  Greeks  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  were  almost 
as  fastidious  upon  the  subject  of  bits  and  bittings 
as  some  hunting  men  of  to-day  are. 


30  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Some  writers  upon  this  subject  have  erred. 
Thus  the  impression  is  prevalent  that  the  horses 
of  the  ancient  Greeks  were  all  much  smaller  than 
modern  horses,  and  the  steeds  shown  on  the 
Parthenon  frieze  are  sometimes  said  to  afford 
proof  that  this  was  so.  A  proportion  of  the 
horses  of  those  early  times  undoubtedly  were 
smaller  than  the  modern  horse  is,  but  on  the 
other  hand  plenty  were  not.  Probably  the  mis- 
taken critics  base  their  assertion  upon  the  fact 
that  the  men  shown  on  the  Parthenon  frieze  and 
similar  compositions,  also  on  some  of  the  vase 
paintings  of  that  period,  apparently  are  as  tall 
as,  or  taller  than,  the  horses  beside  which  they 
are  standing  or  on  which  they  are  mounted. 

The  reason  men  and  horses  are  so  represented 
simply  is  that  according  to  a  standard  rule  of 
ancient  Greek  art  the  heads  of  men  and  animals, 
and  of  all  other  figures  shown  on  such  composi- 
tions, must  be  as  nearly  as  possible  upon  a  level, 
even  though  some  of  the  figures  may  be  standing, 
some  seated,  some  on  horseback,  some  in  chariots. 

This  rule,  known  as  "  Isokelismos,"  is  of 
course  in  direct  opposition  to  the  rule  of  nature, 
yet  as  it  existed  it  had  to  be  observed,  and 
therefore  no  attempt  should  ever  be  made  to 
compare  the  height  of  men  or  beasts  shown 
in  such  representations  as  the  Parthenon  frieze 
merely  by  the  appearance  and  the  proportions 
they  present.  By  observing  how  far  below 


WHITE   HORSES  31 

the  horses'  bellies  the  feet  of  the  mounted  men 
hang,  an  approximate  idea  of  the  height  of  the 
men  by  comparison  with  that  of  some  of  their 
horses  may  be  arrived  at. 


Herodotus  is  of  opinion  that  about  the  year 
480  B.C.  finer  horses  were  owned  by  the  Nisaean 
than  by  any  other  people  of  Asia,  and  he  men- 
tions that  white  horses  were  so  highly  valued 
by  the  Persians  of  about  that  period — who  are 
known  to  have  used  many  white  horses  for 
sacrificial  purposes — that  "some  three  hundred 
and  sixty  horses,  or  about  one  for  every  day  in  the 
year,  and  five  hundred  talents  of  silver,"  was  the 
tribute  sent  by  the  Sicilians.  This  statement 
leads  to  the  conclusion  that  white  horses  must 
have  been  exceptionally  plentiful  in  the  region. 

That  Armenia  had  many  horses,  which  were 
largely  used  even  so  far  back  as  the  fifth  cen- 
tury B.C.,  can  be  gathered  from  the  writings  of 
Ezekiel,  for  the  prophet  does  not  hesitate  to 
declare  that  the  people  of  Togarmah,  which  pre- 
sumably was  part  of  Armenia,  traded  in  the  fairs 
in  horses  and  mules. 

Pindar,  who  so  glorified  King  Arcesilas,  tells 
us  that  Cyrene  became  famous  as  the  city  of 
steeds  and  goodly  chariots,  and  later  the  poet 
Callimachus  sang  of  his  home  "  famed  for  her 


32  THE  HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

steeds."  Hiero  II.  of  Syracuse  owed  practically 
all  his  great  successes  to  the  fact  that  he  owned 
horses  of  considerable  value,  and  to  this  day 
figures  in  marble  of  horses  dedicated  by  him  in 
commemoration  of  his  victories  at  Olympia  are 
to  be  seen  in  the  local  museum  of  Delphi. 

Almost  every  year  attempts  are  made  by 
wealthy  Americans  and  others  to  purchase 
some  of  these  figures,  but  down  to  the  present 
such  attempts  have  proved  of  no  avail. 

Plato,  again,  has  much  to  say  upon  the  horse 
in  its  relation  to  the  history  of  his  epoch.  Thus 
in  one  place  he  writes  :  "  We  must  mount  our 
children  on  horses  in  their  earliest  youth,  and 
take  them  on  horseback  to  see  war,  in  order  that 
they  may  learn  to  ride  ;  the  horses  must  not  be 
spirited  or  warlike,  but  the  most  tractable  and  yet 
the  swiftest  that  can  be  had  ;  in  this  way  they 
will  get  an  excellent  view  of  what  is  hereafter 
to  be  their  business ;  and  if  there  is  danger  they 
have  only  to  follow  their  elder  leaders  and  escape.'' 

Agrigentum — until  405  B.C.,  when  it  was 
destroyed  by  the  Carthaginians  —  was  famous 
for  its  horses.  It  is  said  that  on  one  occasion, 
when  one  of  the  best-known  citizens,  Exaenetus, 
won  the  principal  chariot  race  at  Olympus,  the 
entire  population  came  forth  to  meet  him,  and 
that  he  was  preceded  into  the  city  by  300 
chariots  drawn  by  pairs  of  white  horses.  In- 
deed some  of  the  most  gorgeous  monuments 


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THE   PROCESSION   OF   XERXES         33 

ever  erected  to  the  memory  of  famous  race  horses 
were  those  raised  in  this  city  during  the  period 
of  its  splendour. 


We  have  it  on  good  authority  that,  some 
centuries  before  Christ,  the  Persian  men  of  rank 
deemed  it  derogatory  to  be  seen  on  foot,  and 
that  they  habitually  rode  on  horseback.  Yet  in 
common  with  the  people  of  many  other  races 
they  were  addicted  to  immolating  horses  on 
festival  days,  while  the  practices  in  which  they 
indulged  upon  these  occasions  are  said  to  have 
been  barbarous  in  the  extreme. 

In  almost  every  age  white  horses  in  particular 
would  seem  to  have  been  used  for  sacrificial 
purposes.  The  Persians  sacrificed  bulls  as  well 
as  horses,  a  bull  and  a  horse  being  sometimes 
bound  together  and  then  immolated.  Arrian 
mentions  that  one  horse  at  least  was  sacrificed 
to  Cyrus  every  month,  the  ceremony  being 
usually  performed  at  Pasargadea,  close  to  the 
famous  tomb.  Here  again  white  horses  were 
used  for  the  sacrifices,  for  among  the  Persians  in 
particular  the  white  horse  was  for  many  centuries 
deemed  sacred  and  pronounced  "beloved  of  the 
gods." 

One  of  the  descriptions  that  probably  gives 
a  true  account  of  a  triumphal  march  in  the  third 


34  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

century  B.C.  is  that  of  Herodotus,  where  he 
describes  the  procession  of  Xerxes.  The  follow- 
ing order,  he  tells  us,  was  observed. 

There  came  first  1000  carefully  selected  horse- 
men, then  1000  carefully  selected  spearsmen,  then 
ten  sacred  Nisaean  horses  ''splendidly  capari- 
soned." These  horses  were  called  Nisaean,  we 
are  incidentally  told,  because  they  were  especially 
reared  on  the  plains  of  Nisaea,  in  Media,  at  that 
period  famous  for  its  great  horses. 

Next  came  the  sacred  car  of  Zeus,  drawn  by 
eight  white  horses  "followed  by  charioteers  on 
foot  holding  their  bridles,  for  no  mortal  was 
allowed  to  mount  the  seat."  Xerxes  himself 
brought  up  the  train,  usually  in  a  chariot  drawn 
by  Nisaean  horses,  with  his  charioteer  beside 
him. 


The  people  of  almost  every  nation  of  whom 
we  have  authentic  records  would  appear  to  have 
been  addicted  in  the  centuries  before  Christ  to 
the  atrocious  practice  of  sacrificing  live  horses 
to  their  gods.  Particulars  of  the  weird  rites 
observed  in  connection  with  these  sacrifices  are 
for  the  most  part  too  revolting  to  be  described 
here,  but  one  practice  observed  by  the  Scythians 
cannot  well  be  passed  unnoticed. 

This    people    inhabited    chiefly    the    treeless 


HORSES   AND    MEN    SACRIFICED          35 

steppes  of  Asia,  and  is  known  to  have  sacrificed 
animals  of  many  kinds,  but  horses  most  of  all, 
and  usually  white  or  dun  horses. 

Thus  we  are  told  that  when  a  Scythian  king 
died,  his  favourite  horse,  his  favourite  concubine, 
and  several  important  members  of  his  establish- 
ment, preferably  his  cook  and  his  cupbearer, 
were  buried  with  him.  When  a  year  had  passed, 
a  further  ceremony  took  place. 

This  consisted  in  the  execution,  generally  by 
strangulation,  of  some  fifty  of  the  strongest, 
handsomest  and  generally  most  desirable  young 
men — probably  young  men  who  had  belonged 
to  his  suite — and  in  the  strangulation  also  of  an 
equal  number  of  the  best  horses  that  had  be- 
longed to  him. 

Then,  without  delay,  the  bodies  of  men  and 
horses  were  disembowelled,  next  they  were 
stuffed  with  chaff  or  straw,  and  finally  when  the 
horses,  supplied  each  with  a  bit  and  bridle,  had 
been  set  up  in  a  circle  round  the  tomb  of  the 
deceased  monarch,  the  bodies  of  the  slaughtered 
men  were  set  astride  them. 

And  there  the  ghastly  squadron  remained  until 
it  fell  away  to  dust. 

That  the  literary  records  in  which  these  grue- 
some details  are  to  be  found  are  accurate,  has  to 
some  extent  been  proved  by  discoveries  made  from 
time  to  time — as  for  instance  at  the  opening  of 
the  great  tumuli  in  Russia  about  half-a-century  ago. 


36  THE  HORSE  IN    HISTORY 

Indeed  during  the  thirteenth  century  A.D. 
ceremonies  equally  revolting  are  known  to  have 
been  performed  regularly  among  the  Tartars, 
while  at  the  funeral  of  Frederic  Casimir,  Com- 
mander of  Lorraine,  in  1781,  a  horse  was  killed, 
and  then  buried  with  its  master,  and  at  even  so 
recent  a  date  as  the  funeral  of  Li  Hung  Chang  a 
horse  and  chariot  made  of  paper  were,  according 
to  the  newspaper  reports,  burned  at  the  grave- 
side— probably  a  last  survival  of  some  weird  rite 
of  a  sacrificial  nature  observed  formerly  in  China 
and  Japan. 

Another  race  known  to  have  immolated  live 
horses,  especially  white  horses,  was  the  Veneti. 
This  people  lived  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic, 
and  their  name  survives  to  this  day  in  "  Venice." 

The  sacrifice  of  white  horses  was  common 
too  amongst  the  Scandinavian  and  the  Teutonic 
races,  and  formed  part  of  their  religion.  The 
Sicilian  Greeks,  again,  are  said  to  have  set  a 
high  value  upon  white  horses,  and  to  have  sacri- 
ficed them  under  the  impression  that  by  doing 
so  they  afforded  additional  gratification  to  their 
gods. 

It  would  appear,  indeed,  that  in  all  ages  white 
animals  were  looked  upon  as  sacred  in  a  sense, 
for  in  parts  of  India  the  white  elephant  is  deemed 
sacred  to  this  day,  and  in  parts  of  Persia  the 
white  ass.  Then,  in  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  the 
nomad  Scythians,  whose  territories  lay  chiefly 


THE   HORSE    OF   DARIUS  37 

to  the  north  of  the  River  Don,  owned  immense 
herds  of  horses.  These  they  used  principally 
for  food,  while  the  milk  of  the  mares  they  drank 
and  made  domestic  use  of  in  other  ways,  a  prac- 
tice long  in  vogue  among  the  Turko-Tartaric 
tribes  of  Central  Asia,  and  said  to  be  still  in 
vogue  with  them  in  remote  regions. 

Bearing  upon  early  Persia  is  rather  a  well- 
known  story  that  on  the  death  of  the  famous 
Smerdis  the  seven  princes  who  were  his  possible 
successors  agreed  to  confer  the  throne  upon  the 
owner  of  the  horse  that  should  be  the  first  to 
neigh  when  they  all  met  on  the  following  day. 
The  groom  of  Prince  Darius  having  been  told  of 
this,  had  recourse  to  a  clever  ruse,  for  on  that 
same  evening  he  led  his  master's  horse  to  the 
exact  spot  where  the  horses  were  all  to  meet  on 
the  day  following,  and  there  showed  the  horse  a 
mare.  Upon  arriving  at  this  spot  next  day  the 
horse,  as  we  are  told,  "  neighed  furiously,"  so 
that  Darius  won  his  kingdom  ! 

We  know  that  Hiero,  King  of  Syracuse,  who 
flourished  towards  the  end  of  the  third  and  during 
the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  B.C.,  won 
the  great  Olympic  crown  with  his  good  horse 
Phrenicus.  In  simple  language  Tacitus  describes 
how  the  people  of  Thurii — the  city  built  on  the 
ruins  of  Sybaris  about  the  year  443  B.C. — first 
taught  horse  racing  to  the  Romans. 

Although  towards  the  end  of  the  second  cen- 


38  THE  HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

tury  B.C.,  bareback  riding  was  still  quite  common, 
a  covering  of  some  sort  for  the  horse's  back  was 
becoming  much  more  popular  among  the  Greeks 
despite  the  adherence  to  bareback  riding  by  the 
jockeys  at  the  principal  festivals.  Atiphanes, 
the  "  gentle  humourist,"  whose  plays  were  per- 
formed in  public  for  the  first  time  towards  the 
close  of  the  second  century  B.C.,  alludes  to 
"coverlets  for  a  horse,"  this  being  probably  one 
of  the  first  references  we  have  to  saddles  among 
the  early  Greeks. 


And  now  we  come  to  Xenophon,  one  of  the 
most  finished  of  horsemen  among  the  ancient 
Greeks,  and  apparently  a  true  lover  of  horses. 
With  the  exception  of  an  individual  named  Simo, 
or  Simon,  who  wrote  before  Xenophon's  time, 
there  had  not  existed  a  man  with  deep  and 
practical  knowledge  of  horses  or  horsemanship, 
and  the  care  of  horses,  who  was  able  to  write 
lucidly  upon  these  subjects  until  Xenophon 
wrote  with  so  much  success  his  own  'exhaustive 
work. 

Xenophon  speaks  of  Simo — who,  according  to 
Suidas,  was  by  birth  an  Athenian — on  more  than 
one  occasion.  Xenophon,  however,  did  not  hold 
Simo  in  high  esteem,  as  we  may  gather  from  the 
former's  tone  of  condescension  when  he  states  that 


XENOPHON   AND    SIMO  39 

though  Simo  wrote  with  some  knowledge  of 
horses,  yet  that  he  entertained  an  exalted  opinion 
of  himself  that  was  unpardonable. 

The  truth  of  that  statement  is  borne  out  by 
the  evidence  we  have  that  when,  on  a  famous 
occasion,  Simo  presented  the  brazen  horse  to  the 
temple  of  the  Eleusinian  Ceres,  at  Athens,  he 
had  the  effrontery  to  engrave  upon  the  pedestal 
his  own  works ! 

Though  when  expressing  opinions  upon  the 
points  of  a  horse  the  ancient  Greeks  differed 
rather  widely  in  their  views,  yet  most  of  the 
rules  laid  down  by  Xenophon  are  as  applicable 
to-day  as  they  were  some  three  and  twenty 
centuries  ago. 

We  read,  for  instance,  that  "the  neck  of  the 
horse,  as  it  proceeds  from  the  chest,  should  not 
fall  forward,  like  that  of  a  boar,  but  should  grow 
upward,  like  that  of  a  cock,  and  should  have  an 
easy  motion  at  the  parts  about  the  arch."  That 
the  advice  was  not  overlooked,  even  by  early 
artists,  can  be  accurately  conjectured  if  the 
Parthenon  frieze  be  inspected,  for  there  almost 
every  horse  shown  has  a  neck  "like  that  of  a 
cock."  Xenophon  then  proceeds  : 

"  If  a  horse  has  the  thighs  under  the  tail  broad 
and  not  distorted,  he  will  set  his  hind  legs  well 
apart,  and  will  by  that  means  have  a  firmer  and 
quicker  step,  a  better  seat  for  a  rider,  and  be 
better  in  every  respect.  We  may  see,"  he  con- 


40  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

tinues,  "  a  proof  of  this  in  men,  who  when  they 
wish  to  take  up  anything  from  the  ground  do  try 
to  raise  it  by  setting  their  legs  apart  rather  than 
by  bringing  them  together." 

These  remarks  are  sensible,  yet  probably  there 
are  few  modern  horsemen  ready  to  admit  that  a 
horse's  hoof  should  be  high  and  hollow,  and  the 
frog  kept  up  from  the  ground  "as  well  before  as 
behind,"  which  was  Xenophon's  opinion.  Then  in 
his  time  saddles  and  stirrups  had  not,  apparently, 
been  thought  of,  for  we  read  that  when  first 
introduced  they  were  looked  upon  with  scorn,  all 
who  used  them  being  laughed  at  and  deemed  to 
take  rank  among  what  we  should  call  in  these 
days  "  muffs." 

As  already  noted,  Xenophon  had  something  to 
say  upon  bits  and  bitting,  and  he  describes  at 
length  the  advantages  of  the  jointed  over  the 
rigid  bit.  Also  he  alludes  to  the  custom  of 
wearing  spurs,  and  describes  incidentally  the  con- 
struction of  the  prick  spurs  then  in  vogue. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
a  bit  was  discovered  in  the  Acropolis  of  Athens 
some  twenty  years  ago,  which,  so  it  is  said,  dates 
back  to  the  early  Persian  wars  of  490-479  B.C. 


EARLY  HORSESHOES  41 

Certain  modern  writers  of  books  upon  subjects 
more  or  less  historical  speak  of  horse  doctors. 
Some  twenty -three  centuries  ago,  however, 
even  the  acknowledged  experts  upon  horses  and 
horse  breeding  would  seem  to  have  possessed 
only  crude  anatomical  knowledge  of  the  animal, 
some  of  the  advice  they  tendered  in  cases  of 
illness  amongst  horses  being  grotesque. 

Equally  it  is  evident  that  professional  horse 
breakers  and  trainers,  also  professional  riding 
masters,  were  known  in  Greece  in  Xenophon's 
day,  and  possibly  before  his  time. 

There  is  something  rather  delightful  about 
Xenophon's  ingenuousness  when  he  tells  us  quite 
seriously  that  "  a  horse  that  has  no  longer  the 
marks  in  his  teeth,  neither  rejoices  the  buyer 
with  hope,  nor  is  easy  to  be  exchanged  "  !  He 
speaks  too  with  emphasis  when  assuring  us  that 
when  carefully  examining  a  horse  with  a  view  to 
purchase  we  ought  to  pay  most  attention  to  the 
hoofs — advice  to  some  extent  discounted  by 
remarks  he  makes  a  few  lines  further  on. 

"To  sum  up  all  in  a  few  words,"  he  says  else- 
where, "  whatever  horse  has  good  feet,  is  mild- 
tempered,  sufficiently  swift,  and  able  to  endure 
fatigue,  and  is  in  the  highest  degree  obedient, 
will  probably  give  least  trouble  to  his  rider  and 
contribute  most  to  his  safety  in  military  occupa- 
tions. But  horses  that  from  sluggishness  require 
a  great  deal  of  driving,  or,  from  excess  of  mettle, 


42  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

much  coaxing  and  care,  afford  plenty  of  employ- 
ment to  the  rider,  as  well  as  much  apprehension 
in  time  of  danger." 

The  ancients  evidently  had  a  rooted  antipathy 
to  adopting  any  kind  of  contrivance  calculated  to 
afford  protection  for  their  horses'  hoofs.  Upon 
several  occasions  attempts  were  made  to  introduce 
metal  horseshoes,  but  in  vain.  The  device  most 
resembling  a  horseshoe,  that  they  were  willing 
to  consider  and  of  which  we  have  a  trustworthy 
description,  was  a  covering  not  unlike  a  sandal 
made  of  reeds,  or,  in  rare  instances,  of  leather. 
In  reality  it  resembled  a  boot  rather  than  a  horse- 
shoe, but  it  was  used  only  where  the  ground  was 
very  rough  or  exceptionally  hard. 

In  parts  of  Japan  boots  of  this  kind,  made  of 
straw,  are  worn  to  this  day.  Berenger  speaks  of 
a  horseshoe  said  to  have  been  in  use  in  the  time 
of  Childeric,  whose  date  was  481,  A.D.,  and  most 
likely  it  was  one  of  the  first  horseshoes,  properly 
so  called,  of  which  any  record  is  extant. 

If  the  figure  of  it  preserved  in  Montfaucon's 
"  Antiquities  "  is  to  be  relied  upon  for  accuracy, 
then  it  somewhat  resembled  the  shoe  in  use 
to-day. 

It  seems  clear  that  Xenophon  was  not  an 
advocate  for  docking  horses'  tails,  at  any  rate  to 
the  exaggerated  extent  we  so  often  see  them 
docked  to-day,  also  that  he  was  not  partial  to  the 
hogged  mane,  for  in  speaking  of  the  horse's  fore- 


ANCIENT  METHODS   OF  MOUNTING      43 

lock,  "  while  these  hairs,"  he  avers,  "  though  of 
good  length,  do  not  prevent  the  horse  from  seeing, 
they  brush  away  from  his  eyes  whatever  annoys 
them.  Therefore  we  may  suppose  that  the  gods 
gave  such  hairs  to  the  horse  instead  of  the  long 
ears  which  they  have  given  to  asses  and  mules 
to  be  a  protection  to  the  eyes." 


A  question  sometimes  set  when  the  subject  of 
early  horsemanship  is  under  discussion  is  :  How 
used  the  ancients  to  mount,  seeing  that  they 
placed  at  best  only  cloths  on  their  horses'  backs, 
and  that  they  had  not  stirrups  ? 

Historical  records  contain  information  upon 
the  point,  and  we  read  that  in  the  centuries 
before  Christ  horses  were  mounted  apparently  in 
three  ways — by  the  rider's  vaulting  without 
assistance  on  to  the  back ;  by  his  vaulting  or 
mounting  with  the  aid  of  a  pole  ;  by  his  making 
the  horse  crouch. 

There  was  a  fourth  way,  but  for  an  obvious 
reason  it  was  less  often  resorted  to.  This  was 
by  making  a  slave  bend  his  back,  or  kneel  on  all 
fours,  and  by  then  stepping  upon  him — using  him 
as  a  mounting-block,  in  short.  The  last-named 
method  was  common  in  Persia,  where  Sapor, 
when  he  had  conquered  the  Emperor  Valerian, 
forced  him  thus  to  debase  himself  to  show  his 
complete  subjection. 


44  THE   HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  the  soldiery 
used  sometimes  to  mount  with  the  aid  of  a  spear. 
Xenophon,  in  his  seventh  chapter,  instructs  the 
horseman  to  mount  "by  catching  hold  of  the 
mane,  about  the  ears,"  a  feat  surely  impossible 
to  perform  save  when  mounting  a  pony. 

In  the  illustration  of  a  Sarmatian  on  horseback, 
facing  page  33,  both  a  man  and  horse  are 
shown  in  armour  made  of  horse-hoof  cut  into 
little  plates,  which,  Pausanias  tells  us  in  his  Attics, 
were  sewn  together  with  the  sinews  of  oxen  and 
horses.  Sometimes  bone  was  used  in  place  of 
horse-hoof,  but  iron  never,  there  being  no  iron 
mines  in  the  country,  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
Sarmatians.  The  soldier  shown  holding  up  his 
horse's  leg,  in  the  illustration  facing  page  45, 
presumably  is  about  to  tie  on  one  of  the 
" stockings"  used  in  place  of  shoes;  and  on 
the  same  plate  a  soldier  is  about  to  mouut  on 
the  off  (right)  side. 


ROMAN  SOLDIER  ABOUT  TO  ADJUST 
"STOCKING"  USED  IN  PLACE  OF 
SHOES 


ROMAN   SOLDIER    ABOUT   TO    MOUNT 
ON   OFF   SIDE 


A    MAURITANtAN    HORSEMAN.       SHOWING    HOW    THE    MAURITANIANS    AND    HUMIDIANS    RODE 
WITHOUT   SADDLE    OR    BRIDLE 


CHAPTER  III 

Xenophon  disliked  the  "American"  seat — Cavalry  organised  by 
the  Athenians  —  Cost  of  horses  twenty-three  centuries  ago — 
Aristophanes  ;  Aristotle  ;  Athenians'  fondness  for  horse  racing — 
Alexander  the  Great ;  Bucephalus — Story  of  Bucephalus  ;  his 
death — Famous  painters  of  horses  :  Apelles,  Pauson,  Micon — 
Mythical  flesh-eating  horses  of  Diomed — Hannibal's  cavalry  of 
12,000  horse — Coins  —  Posidonius ;  horses  of  the  Parthians, 
Iberians  and  Celtiberians 

F  N  spite  of  the  derisive  remarks  often  uttered 
concerning  Xenophon's  advice  to  young  riders, 
and  his  advice  on  horsemanship  in  general  and 
the  care  of  horses,  there  is  much  sound  sense  in 
plenty  of  the  hints  he  gave  to  the  Greek  riders  of 
three  hundred  years  before  Christ,  while  many  of 
the  rules  he  laid  down  are  as  applicable  to-day  as 
they  probably  were  then. 

His  advice  on  the  vexed  question  of  bits  and 
bitting,  to  take  but  a  single  example,  is  very 
sound,  while  his  strong  objection  to  allowing 
horses'  legs  to  be  washed  frequently  is  shared  by 
plenty  of  horse  owners  at  the  present  time. 

Then,  the  old  Athenian  apparently  disapproved 
of  or  disliked  what  we  have  come  to  call  the 
"  American  "  seat  on  a  horse,  for  he  declares  that 
the  legs  of  a  man  mounted  should  be  almost 
straight,  the  body  upright  and  supple. 
45 


46  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Attempts  have  repeatedly  been  made  to  trace 
the  life  of  Xenophon  prior  to  the  time  when, 
in  401  B.C.,  he  first  joined  the  army  of  Cyrus, 
but  in  vain.  He  is,  however,  known  to  have 
been  a  close  friend  of  Socrates  from  a  very 
early  age,  and  probably  when  he  wrote  the 
"  Anabasis"  he  was  a  little  over  thirty.  But 
when  he  died,  about  the  year  355  B.C.,  he  was 
quite  an  old  man. 

Historians  are  almost  unanimous  in  declaring 
that  at  Marathon,  in  490  B.C.,  the  Athenians  were 
without  cavalry,  though  by  that  time  many  of 
the  wealthy  citizens  undoubtedly  owned  horses, 
some  of  which  they  most  likely  used  for  racing. 
When,  however,  the  Athenians  came  to  realise 
what  an  amount  of  execution  could  be  done, 
and  to  see  the  execution  that  was  done  by  the 
Persians,  with  the  help  of  cavalry,  they  set  to 
work  to  organise  in  Athens,  as  quickly  as  possible, 
a  powerful  body  of  mounted  warriors. 

How  formidable  that  cavalry  later  on  proved 
itself  to  be  is  well  known  to  all  classical  scholars, 
and  the  more  surprising  it  therefore  is  that 
the  Greek  cavalry  should  not  afterwards  have 
risen  to  the  level  of  that  organised  by  Mace- 
donians. Indeed,  according  to  more  than  one 
historian,  the  Greek  cavalry  was  employed  chiefly 
to  harass  an  enemy  when  marching,  or  to  pursue 
a  vanquished  and  retreating  regiment,  while  one 
writer  at  least  maintains  that  the  Greek  cavalry 


COST   OF   HORSES  47 

at  best  never  approached  within  javelin  range  of 
an  enemy's  line  of  battle  during  an  attack, 

The  cost  of  horses  at  about  this  time  varied 
almost  as  widely  as  it  does  now.  Thus  it  was 
not  unusual  to  pay  three  minae,  the  equivalent  of 
about  fifteen  guineas,  for  quite  a  common  hack — 
an  extraordinarily  high  price  when  we  bear  in 
mind  the  purchasing  value  of  money  in  those 
days — while  for  trained  war  horses,  or  for  race 
horses,  any  sum  from  ten  minae  upward  was  paid 
frequently. 

Xenophon  is  known  to  have  given  approxim- 
ately eleven  minae  for  a  little  war  horse  that,  so 
far  as  one  can  ascertain,  did  not  afterwards  fulfil 
expectations,  so  perhaps  it  is  hardly  astonishing 
to  read  that  some  years  later  the  terms  "horse 
owner"  and  "  spendthrift "  came  to  be  deemed 
more  or  less  synonymous. 

A  list  drawn  up  at  about  this  time  of  the 
principal  defects  to  be  guarded  against  when 
inspecting  a  horse  with  a  view  to  purchase  is 
interesting,  inasmuch  as  the  points  looked  upon 
as  faults  three  and  twenty  centuries  ago  are  with 
only  a  few  exceptions  deemed  to  be  egregious 
defects  to-day. 

The  following  is  the  list  that  was  drawn  up, 
so  it  is  alleged,  by  Pollux : 

Hoofs  with  thin  horn  (sic) ;  hoofs  full,  fat,  soft 
and  flat — or,  as  Xenophon  termed  them,  "  low- 
lying  " ;  heavy  fetlocks ;  shanks  with  varicose 


48  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

veins  ;  flabby  thighs  ;  hollow  shoulder-blades  ; 
projecting  neck  ;  bald  mane  ;  narrow  chest ;  fat 
and  heavy  head  ;  large  ears  ;  converging  nostrils  ; 
sunken  eyes  ;  thin  and  meagre  sides  ;  sharp  back- 
bone ;  rough  haunches  ;  thin  buttocks  ;  stiff  legs, 
stiff  knees. 

Though  among  the  horses  of  the  ancient  Greeks 
the  hogged  mane  must  at  one  time  have  been 
seen  often  enough,  there  does  not  appear  to  be 
in  the  works  of  the  early  writers  any  direct 
allusion  to  the  hogging  of  horses  as  a  regular 
practice. 

Probably  if  the  custom  did  exist  it  was  on 
the  wane  by  the  time  Xenophon  began  to  write. 
There  is  evidence  to  show  that  in  ancient  Greece 
the  horses  at  about  this  period  were  rather  smaller 
than  those  of  most  other  countries  of  which  we 
have  authentic  records,  a  characteristic  still  notice- 
able amongst  the  horses  in  several  parts  of  modern 
Greece. 

The  Greeks  almost  always  used  entire  horses 
for  all  purposes.  Even  in  war  they  did  not 
employ  geldings,  a  custom  that  has  given  rise 
to  the  belief  that  in  the  centuries  before  Christ 
all  horses,  with  the  exception  of  the  Libyan 
steeds,  were  far  more  savage  than  the  horses 
of  to-day. 

Emphatically  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  Greeks  made  friends  and  companions  of 
their  horses  as  the  Arab  race  is  known  to  do  or  to 


PLEASURE   HORSES    OF   THE   GREEKS     49 

have  done,  though  the  fable  of  Achilles'  love  for 
his  horse  named  Xanthus  makes  a  pretty  enough 
story.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  Xenophon  may  have  been  fond  of  horses 
not  merely  because  of  the  amusement  they 
afforded  him  or  the  pleasure  he  derived  from 
riding  and  hunting. 

For  the  rest  the  Greeks,  in  common  with  the 
people  of  most  of  the  warlike  nations  in  those 
early  days,  enjoyed  possessing  horses  mainly 
because  they  served  to  enhance  life's  pleasure, 
and  were  of  practical  use  in  war. 

Certainly  it  may  be  said  of  Xenophon  that 
he  did  not  preach  the  doctrine  of  kindness  to 
horses  without  himself  practising  it  thoroughly, 
also  that  he  was  ever  ready  to  rebuke  severely 
all  who  ill-treated  their  own  horses  or  his. 

Apparently  the  Greeks  of  about  this  era  did 
not  keep  what  we  should  term  to-day  pleasure 
horses,  though  they  affected  pleasure  horses  in 
the  sense  that  they  kept  race  horses.  With  the 
death  of  Xenophon  we  lose  touch,  to  some  extent, 
with  the  progress  of  the  horse  in  history,  but  the 
thread  is  taken  up  again  in  the  Roman  period 
when  Varro,  writing  in  37  B.C.,  furnishes  certain 
details  that  are  of  interest,  Virgil  adding  to  them 
a  little  later  in  his  "  Georgics." 

After  that  we  find  instructive  comment  in  the 
writings  of  Calpurnius  and  Columella  in  the  first 
century  A.D.  ;  in  those  of  Oppian  and  Nemesian 
D 


50  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

in  the  third  century  ;  and  in  those  of  Apsyrtus, 
Pelagonius  and  Palladius  in  the  fourth  century. 


When  all  is  said,  Xenophon's  information  most 
likely  is  by  far  the  most  trustworthy  of  any  that 
has  been  handed  down  to  us,  in  the  same  way 
that  his  descriptions  certainly  are  the  most  ac- 
curate. Only  a  few  fragments  of  the  book  by 
Simo,  written  probably  about  the  year  460  B.C., 
remain  ;  yet  even  those  fragments  contain  peculiar 
statements. 

Thus  in  addition  to  insinuating  that  Thessaly 
was  the  only  region  famous  for  horses  in  the 
centuries  before  Christ — an  assertion  indirectly 
gainsaid  by  Xenophon — he  didactically  remarks 
that  the  colour  of  a  horse  ought  not  to  be  taken 
into  consideration  when  the  animal's  qualities  are 
being  summed  up,  a  statement  that  the  majority 
of  the  early  writers  openly  repudiated,  and  that, 
as  most  of  us  know,  is  in  every  country  deemed 
devoid  of  truth  at  the  present  day. 

Though  particulars  are  difficult  to  obtain,  there 
is  reason  to  believe  that  the  horse  named  after 
the  Thracian  river,  Strymon — owing  to  its  having 
been  bred  in  that  vicinity — and  that  was  immolated 
by  Xerxes  before  his  invasion  of  Greece,  was,  as 
usual,  a  white  horse. 

By  exactly  what  route  horses  were  introduced 


ATHENIANS  FOND  OF  HORSE  RACING    51 

into  Greece  has  not  been  ascertained  for  certain, 
but  the  fact  that  fossilised  remains  of  horses  have 
not  been  found  in  Greece  as  they  have  been  in 
many  other  countries  leads  to  the  belief  that  the 
horse  was  not  indigenous  to  the  country. 

From  a  very  remote  period,  however,  we  find 
horses  represented  on  vase  paintings ;  and  from 
these  paintings  too  we  are  able  practically  to 
prove  that  the  Greeks  had  not  rowels  in  their 
primitive  spurs,  but  that  the  spur  consisted  of  a 
short  goad  attached  to  the  heel  of  the  boot  by 
means  of  a  strap  passing  over  the  instep  and 
another  that  passed  under  the  sole,  almost  as  the 
modern  hunting  spur  is  strapped  on.  Spurs  of 
this  kind  have  been  discovered  in  Olympia,  also 
in  Magna  Graecia,  and  elsewhere. 

With  regard  to  the  Greek  bits  and  bridles  of  a 
later  date,  the  former  apparently  had  no  leverage 
— certainly  they  had  no  curb  chain — while  the 
pattern  of  the  bridle  seems  to  have  remained 
unaltered. 


As  we  come  nearer  still  to  the  time  of  Christ,  we 
find  the  young  men  of  Athens  growing  fonder  and 
fonder  of  horse  racing  and  taking  more  pains  and 
spending  much  time  and  money  in  their  attempts 
to  improve  the  breed  of  horses.  And  though 
the  soil  of  Attica  was  by  no  means  adapted 


52  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

for  purposes  of  horse  rearing,  it  must  in  justice 
be  said  that  their  attempts  met  with  reward. 

Thus  it  happened  that  about  this  time — that  is 
to  say  towards  the  close  of  the  third  or  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  century — the  comic  poet, 
Aristophanes,  who  died  in  380  B.C.,  began  to  in- 
veigh against  the  increasing  popularity  of  horse 
racing,  and  against  the  spread  of  gambling  con- 
sequent thereon. 

In  his  immortal  comedy  of  The  Clouds,  it 
will  be  remembered,  he  portrays  a  typical  young 
spendthrift,  Pheidippes,  and  an  equally  typical 
indignant  father,  Strepsiades,  both  of  whom 
would  serve  well  as  latter-day  types  of  men  of 
the  same  stamp. 

The  son,  when  the  comedy  opens,  has  lost 
heavily  on  the  turf  and  incurred  the  displeasure, 
not  to  say  roused  the  indignation,  of  his  father,  in 
addition  to  burdening  the  old  man  heavily  with 
his  gambling  debts.  Presently  the  son  is  sued 
by  Pasion,  a  characteristic  usurer  of  that  period, 
for  the  recovery  of  the  entire  sum  of  twelve 
minae. 

"  For  what  with  debts  and  duns  and  stable- 
keepers'  bills,"  Strepsiades  exclaims  in  exaspera- 
tion in  the  opening  lines,  addressing  his  son 
Pheidippes,  who  lies  asleep  before  him — "  what 
with  debts  and  duns  and  stablekeepers'  bills  which 
this  fine  spark  heaps  on  my  back,  I  lie  awake  the 
whilst :  and  what  cares  he  but  to  coil  up  his  locks, 


AVERAGE   SPAN   OF   LIFE  53 

ride,  drive  his  horses,  dream  of  them  all  night.  ..." 
And  so  on. 

This  gives  us,  to  start  with,  an  idea  of  the  de- 
gree of  popularity  that  horse  racing  had  attained 
in  Greece  at  about  this  time,  for  Pheidippes  is 
meant  to  be  a  character  drawn  from  life  and 
typical  of  the  young  punters  of  the  period. 

Later  we  learn  that  the  money  for  which  the 
father  is  being  sued  had,  in  the  first  instance, 
been  borrowed  to  pay  for  a  "  starling-coloured 
horse  " — whatever  kind  of  weird  creature  that  may 
have  been.  Possibly  "  fleabitten  "  is  intended, 
for  the  geographer,  Strabo,  speaks  of  "  the  starling- 
coloured  horses  of  the  Parthians "  and  of  the 
people  of  Northern  Spain,  and  it  is  known  that 
plenty  of  those  horses  were  of  the  colour  that  we 
should  term  to-day  "  fleabitten." 


Aristotle  is  the  next  to  enlighten  us  to  some 
extent  upon  the  growing  fondness  of  the  Greeks 
for  horses,  especially  for  race  horses  and  war 
horses.  He  tells  us  too  that  about  the  average 
span  the  horses  in  his  time — the  middle  of  the 
second  century  B.C.,  384  to  322  —  lived  was 
eighteen  to  twenty  years,  though  a  few  were 
said  to  have  reached  five  and  twenty,  and  even 
thirty,  and  a  very  few  indeed  to  have  died  at  fifty. 

Whether  the  custom  that  then  prevailed  of  feed- 


54  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

ing  horses  mostly  on  barley  proved  beneficial 
or  the  reverse  in  the  long  run  we  are  not  told. 
Finally  we  come  to  Alexander  the  Great  and  his 
renowned  Bucephalus,  a  horse  bred,  as  we  are 
told,  by  Philoneicus  of  Pharsalus,  a  Thessalian. 

Bucephalus,  or  rather  Bucephaktf,  means  ox 
head,  or  bull  head,  from  which  we  may  conclude 
that  whatever  good  points  Bucephalus  may  have 
had  —  and  without  doubt  he  had  many  —  he 
certainly  had  not  the  fine  head  of  a  modern 
hunter  or  the  tapering  muzzle  of  the  thorough- 
bred that  nowadays  we  so  much  admire. 

It  has  been  stated  that  Bucephalus  derived  his 
name  from  a  mark  on  the  left  shoulder  in  the  form 
more  or  less  of  a  bull's  head.  As  we  know,  how- 
ever, that  many  years  before  Alexander's  Buce- 
phalus was  foaled  there  existed  a  type  of  Thes- 
salian horse  upon  which  the  same  name  had  been 
bestowed,  the  conjecture  is  probably  a  false  one. 

How  great  the  fame  of  Bucephalus  was  may 
be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  of  all  the  horses 
possessed  by  the  ancient  Greeks  down  to  this 
date  he  alone  is  the  animal  over  which  they 
thoroughly  "  enthuse."  From  what  we  are 
told  in  the  writings  of  Aristotle,  indeed,  and 
of  later  historians,  Bucephalus  must  have  been 
quite  a  tall  horse,  well  shaped,  coal-black,  with  a 
good  shoulder  and  small  ears.  Also  he  had  a 
white  star  in  the  middle  of  his  forehead,  a  mark 
characteristic  of  certain  Libyan  breeds  of  old. 


;. 


THE   STORY   OF   BUCEPHALUS         55 

An  unknown  writer  in  the  "  Geoponics  "  avers 
that  in  the  centuries  just  before  Christ  many  of 
the  best  horses  had  eyes  of  different  colour — what 
we  sometimes  term  a  wall  eye,  and  Americans  a 
China  eye — and  from  his  own  deductions  he  con- 
cludes that  Bucephalus  probably  had  eyes  that 
did  not  match.  There  does  not,  however,  appear 
to  be  direct  evidence  that  this  was  so. 

Plutarch  sets  the  price  paid  for  Bucephalus 
by  Alexander's  father,  King  Philip,  at  thirteen 
talents,  while  Pliny  is  of  opinion  that  the  price 
was  higher  still — namely,  sixteen  talents. 

Now  the  sum  that  to-day  would  be  the  equiva- 
lent of  thirteen  talents  is  approximately  ^3500, 
and  when  we  bear  in  mind  the  prices  that  in  the 
second  century  frequently  were  paid  even  for 
the  best  horses  obtainable,  and  recollect,  in 
addition,  that  at  the  time  King  Philip  bought 
Bucephalus  the  horse  was  probably  aged — some 
writers  aver  that  he  must  have  been  quite 
fourteen  when  Philip  bought  him  —  it  is  not 
possible  to  reconcile  the  statement  that  a  fancy 
price  in  any  way  approaching  the  sum  named 
could  have  been  paid. 

The  story  of  the  trial  and  subsequent  purchas^ 
of  Bucephalus  is  both  pretty  and  picturesque. 
More,  it  would  appear  to  be  true  in  almost  every 
detail.  According  to  Plutarch,  whose  account 
probably  is  the  most  trustworthy,  the  horse  was 
first  brought  before  King  Philip  to  be  given  at 


56  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

public  trial,  when,  to  the  discomfiture  of  its  owner, 
it  showed  itself  to  be  apparently  "a  fierce  and 
unmanageable  beast  that  would  neither  allow 
anybody  to  mount  him,  nor  obey  any  of  Philip's 
attendants,  but  reared  and  plunged  against  them 
all,  so  that  the  king  in  a  rage  bade  them  take 
him  away  for  an  utterly  wild  and  unbroken 
brute." 

At  this  juncture  it  was  that  Alexander — at  the 
time  a  boy  of  twelve,  and  Aristotle  not  yet  his 
tutor — came  upon  the  scene.  We  are  told  that 
he  "leapt  suddenly  forward  and  in  an  access  of 
indignation  cried  out  before  the  king  and  every- 
body assembled  that  the  men  attempting  to  ride 
the  horse  were  '  clumsy  clowns,'  "  adding,  with 
the  self-assurance  of  precocious  boyhood,  that  "if 
they  were  not  careful  they  would  spoil  the  horse 
entirely." 

Philip  at  first  paid  no  attention  to  his  son's 
outburst,  deeming  it  to  be  childish  spleen,  but 
upon  the  lad's  refusing  to  be  quieted  he  turned 
to  him,  suddenly  nettled,  and  demanded  in  a  sharp 
tone  how  he  dare  be  so  insolent  as  to  criticise  his 
elders.  In  no  way  abashed,  Alexander  retorted 
that  in  this  instance  he  certainly  did  know  much 
better  than  his  elders,  and  that  if  his  father 
would  allow  him  he  would  prove  it  by  himself 
mounting  the  horse  at  once  and  riding  it  round 
the  ring. 

"  And  what  will  you  forfeit  for  your  rashness  if 


THE   STORY   OF  BUCEPHALUS         57 

you  are  thrown  off? "  the  king  inquired,  not 
troubling  to  conceal  his  anger. 

To  which  young  Alexander  retorted  with  much 
spirit  : 

"  The  price  of  the  horse,  by  Zeus  !  " 

It  is  hardly  likely  that  Alexander,  rash  though 
he  undoubtedly  was,  would  have  said  this  if  the 
price  at  which  Bucephalus  was  valued  amounted 
to  a  sum  in  talents  equivalent  to  thousands  of 
pounds,  for  King  Philip  though  a  just  ruler  was 
a  stern  father,  and  Alexander  must  have  known 
that  his  father  would  extort  the  forfeit  should  he 
fail  to  ride  the  horse. 

The  lad's  reply,  we  are  told,  was  received  with 
shouts  of  laughter.  This  public  expression  of 
ridicule  it  may  have  been  that  set  the  boy  upon 
his  mettle,  for  without  further  parley  he  ran  out 
into  the  arena,  ordered  his  father's  attendants 
aside,  and  then,  grasping  the  reins,  began  to  pat 
the  horse's  neck  and  "  soothe  him  with  soft 
words." 

For  the  boy  had  observed  what  apparently 
nobody  else  had  noticed — namely,  that  the  horse 
grew  restive  at  the  sight  of  its  own  shadow. 
Without  waiting,  therefore,  he  turned  the  horse 
to  face  the  sun,  then  at  once  "  sprang  up  and 
bestrode  him  unharmed."  Next,  gradually  and 
very  gently,  and  using  neither  whip  nor  spur,  he 
made  Bucephalus  move  round  and  round  in  a 
circle  until  the  animal  no  longer  feared  its  shadow 


58  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

and  then  when  it  had,  as  we  are  told,  "  given  up 
all  threatening  behaviour,  and  was  only  hot  for  the 
course,"  he  gave  the  horse  its  head,  "  urging  him 
onward  by  raising  his  voice  and  using  his  heel." 

At  the  sight  of  this  fine  display  of  horse  break- 
ing and  horsemanship  the  spectators,  now  some- 
what abashed  at  the  haste  they  had  been  in  to 
jeer,  grew  silent.  But  not  for  long.  Presently,  as 
Alexander  came  galloping  back,  "  full  of  just  pride 
and  pleasure,"  the  assembled  multitude,  including 
the  king's  attendants,  "of  one  accord  raised  a 
great  cheer,  lifting  up  their  hands  from  pure 
joy." 

Philip  himself  must  have  been  of  an  emotional 
nature,  for  we  read  that  "he  said  nothing,  but 
wept  silently  from  pure  joy." 

Possibly  the  lad  too  suffered  from  "pure  joy" 
at  that  moment,  for  upon  his  dismounting  his 
father  advanced  with  the  remark  that  Macedonia 
was  "not  big  enough  for  such  a  son,"  that  he 
"  must  go  look  for  a  kingdom  to  match  him." 

Which  shows  that  even  in  the  centuries  before 
Christ  there  was  truth  in  the  popular  platitude 
that  nothing  succeeds  like  success  ! 

Then  and  there  Bucephalus  was  bought  for 
Alexander,  and  from  that  time  until  its  death, 
from  wounds  received  in  a  battle  fought  against 
the  Indian  king,  Porus,  the  horse  remained 
Alexander's  favourite  charger  and  companion. 

A  remarkable  peculiarity  about  this  animal  was 


THE   STORY    OF   BUCEPHALUS         59 

that  though  subsequently  it  came  to  allow  the 
grooms  to  ride  it  bareback,  yet  when  it  had  on 
one  of  the  cloths  that  at  that  period  did  duty  for 
a  saddle  it  would  allow  only  Alexander  to  mount 
it.  As  one  writer  neatly  says  :  "  When  others 
tried  to  mount  the  horse  with  the  cloth  on  they 
invariably  had  to  take  to  their  heels  to  save  them- 
selves from  his."  It  is  further  recorded  that  when 
Alexander  wished  to  mount,  Bucephalus  would 
crouch  of  its  own  accord  to  enable  its  master  to 
get  on  more  easily. 

Alexander  took  Bucephalus  with  him  on  his 
famous  expeditions  into  the  East,  and  on  one 
occasion,  in  Hyrcania,  the  horse  was  stolen.  The 
king  "  thereupon  became  terrible  to  see,  so  great 
was  his  rage."  At  once  an  edict  was  issued  that 
unless  the  horse  were  returned  to  him  without 
delay  he  would  "  carry  fire  and  sword  throughout 
the  country — north  and  south,  east  and  west, 
sparing  neither  men  nor  women,  nor,  if  need  be, 
even  the  smallest  children." 

A  chronicler  of  the  period,  commenting  upon 
this,  drily  observes  that  when  Alexander's  deter- 
mination became  known,  "  the  horse  was  returned 
in  a  hurry  !  " 

"Thus,"  remarks  Arrian,  the  great  historian, 
"  the  horse  must  have  been  as  dear  to  Alexander 
as  Alexander  was  terrible  to  the  barbarians."  As 
he  here  employs  the  word  "  barbarian"  in  its 
offensive  signification  he  evidently  despised  the 


60  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

people  of  Hyrcania  because  they  had  sense  enough 
to  return  the  stolen  horse  instead  of  waiting  with 
their  kith  and  kin  to  be  slain  or  tortured ! 

In  the  descriptions  of  almost  all  the  great 
victories  won  by  Alexander  the  Great,  allusion 
is  made  to  his  favourite  steed.  We  are  told  by 
Gellius  that  in  the  battle  that  practically  witnessed 
the  death  of  Bucephalus  the  king  had  pressed 
forward  recklessly  into  the  thick  of  the  fight,  and 
apparently  right  into  the  enemy's  lines,  and  had 
thus  become  "  the  mark  for  every  spear  " — a  state- 
ment which,  if  literally  true,  points  to  an  enemy 
made  up  of  singularly  inept  marksmen. 

"  More  than  one  spear,"  he  goes  on,  "  was 
buried  in  the  neck  and  flanks  of  the  horse,  but, 
though  at  the  point  of  death,  and  almost  drained 
of  blood,  he  succeeded  with  a  bold  dash  in  carry- 
ing the  king  from  the  very  midst  of  the  foe,  and 
then  fell,  breathing  his  last  tranquilly  now  that  he 
knew  his  master  was  safe,  and  as  comforted  by 
the  knowledge  as  if  he  had  had  the  feelings  of  a 
human  being." 

There  is  something  about  the  concluding 
sentence  that  leads  to  the  belief  that  Gellius  must 
have  been  either  remarkably  imaginative,  or  else 
of  a  more  romantic  nature  than  the  majority  of 
his  contemporaries  have  given  him  credit  for  be- 
ing. The  last  line  in  particular  is  very  precious. 
After  reading  it  can  one  feel  astonished  at 
Alexander's  enthusiasm  having  carried  him  to 


FAMOUS   PAINTERS   OF   HORSES       61 

the  length  of  causing  him  to  build  a  city  to  the 
memory  of  the  noble  steed,  a  city  to  which  he 
gave  the  name  Bucephala? 

The  handsome  bronze  discovered  in  Hercu- 
laneum  is  popularly  supposed  to  represent  the 
figures  of  Alexander  and  Bucephalus.  The  work 
probably  of  Lysippus — whom  Alexander  himself 
ordered  to  produce  a  scene  representing  a  fight 
during  the  great  battle  of  Granicus  —  it  is 
extremely  interesting. 

A  pleasing  anecdote  told  of  Alexander  and 
Bucephalus,  and  more  likely  to  be  true  than  are 
the  majority  of  the  tales  that  are  related  of  this 
horse  and  its  owner,  is  to  the  effect  that  upon 
one  occasion  the  king  went  to  inspect  a  portrait 
of  himself  mounted  on  his  favourite  charger,  that 
the  distinguished  painter,  Apelles,  had  just  com- 
pleted. 

Nettled  at  Alexander's  scant  praise  of  his  work 
— for  we  are  told  the  picture  was  so  lifelike  that 
even  Bucephalus  neighed  when  first  he  saw  it — 
Apelles  turned  to  the  king  with  the  rebuke : 

"  I  fear  me,  your  Majesty,  that  your  horse  is  a 
better  judge  of  painting  than  his  noble  master." 

What  retort  the  king  made  is  not  recorded, 
but  the  story  recalls  one  of  a  similar  nature  re- 
lated of  the  famous  artist,  Pauson,  who  when 
ordered  to  produce  a  picture  of  a  horse  rolling  on 
its  back,  sent  to  his  patron  a  picture  of  a  horse 
galloping  madly  through  a  cloud  of  dust. 


62  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

In  a  great  rage  the  patron  sent  for  Pauson, 
and,  upon  his  arrival,  "  began  to  storm  and  rave," 
at  the  same  time  demanding  to  know  what  had 
made  him  commit  a  blunder  so  egregious.  With- 
out replying,  Pauson  walked  up  to  the  picture 
and  turned  it  upside  down,  when,  to  the  vast 
amusement  of  the  hitherto  irate  patron,  there 
appeared  a  perfect  picture  of  a  horse  rolling  on 
its  back  on  a  dusty  plain. 

Of  the  famous  artist,  Micon,  it  is  related  that 
he  once  incurred  the  criticism  of  the  rider,  Simon, 
who,  upon  looking  at  one  of  his  pictures,  remarked 
drily  that  never  in  his  life  before  had  he  seen  a 
horse  that  had  eyelashes  on  its  lower  lids ! 


It  seems  certain  that  in  the  centuries  before 
Christ  the  steeds  bred  in  Thessaly  were  among 
the  most  highly  prized,  though  the  horses  of 
several  other  breeds — such,  for  instance,  as  the 
Argive,  the  Arcadian,  the  Epidaurian  and  the 
Arcananian — possessed  great  courage  and  excep- 
tional power  of  endurance. 

In  the  very  early  times  Thessalian  horses  were 
used  largely  for  charioteering.  Allusion  is  made 
repeatedly  in  the  classics  to  these  Thessalian 
animals,  stress  being  laid  upon  their  symmetry, 
or  what  to-day  we  should  term  their  make  and 
shape.  The  mythical  mares  of  King  Diomed  of 


FLESH-EATING  HORSES  63 

Thrace,  the  tyrant  whose  grim  humour,  we  are 
told,  led  him  to  feed  his  horses  on  the  strangers 
who  visited  his  kingdom,  were  alleged  to  be  of 
the  breed  of  Thessaly,  a  statement  made  indirectly 
in  the  description  of  Hercules'  conquest  of  the 
tyrant  and  his  subsequent  "  casting  of  the  tyrant's 
quivering  carcass  to  his  own  horses  to  be  de- 
voured." 

Spenser  alludes  to  this  incident  in  the  fifth 
book  of  his  "  Faerie  Queene,"  in  the  following 
lines  : — 

"  Like  to  the  Thracian  tyrant  who,  they  say, 
Unto  his  horses  gave  his  guests  for  meat, 
Till  he  himself  was  made  their  greedy  prey, 
And  torn  to  pieces  by  Alcides  great." 

Other  mythical  horses  of  the  Thessalian  breed 
were  those  of  Achilles,  of  Rhesus,  and  of  Orestes 
in  Sophocles'  stirring  description  of  the  race  in 
Electra. 

It  seems  safe  to  say  that  until  about  the 
fourth  century  B.C.  the  Romans  also  did  not  use 
saddles,  at  least  saddles  with  trees.  That  some- 
where about  this  period,  however,  they  began  to 
adopt  what  we  should  call  to-day  saddlecloths, 
and  that  these  were  kept  in  place  by  a  strap  or 
bandage  in  the  nature  of  a  girth  that  passed 
beneath  the  belly,  appears  to  be  certain. 

For  some  unknown  reason  this  girth  is  more 
often  than  not  omitted  on  the  works  of  art  that 


64  THE  HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

represent  horses  of  that  period.  Some  of  the 
animals  of  the  Parthenon  frieze  lead  us  to 
believe  that  on  occasions  horses  were  still  made 
to  crouch  when  about  to  be  mounted,  though  it 
is  not  probable  they  crouched  voluntarily,  as 
Bucephalus  did.  From  impressions  on  the 
Parthenon  frieze  we  may  also  conclude  that 
the  mounting  block  was  not  unknown  in  the 
centuries  before  Christ. 

A  good  idea  of  the  exact  stamp  of  horse  har- 
nessed to  the  war  chariots  of  those  centuries  may 
be  obtained  by  inspecting  the  bronze  horse  of  the 
quadriga  from  the  Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus, 
the  date  of  the  Mausoleum  being  331-341  B.C. 
— the  building  took  ten  years  to  erect.  This 
bronze  is  to  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum. 

Hannibal's  must  have  been  the  army  the 
best  provided  with  cavalry  down  to  the  year 
218  B.C.,  for  in  that  year  Hannibal  advanced 
into  Italy  with  no  less  than  90,000  foot  and 
some  12,000  horse,  many  of  the  latter  being 
native  horses  mounted  by  Numidians  who 
persisted  still  in  scorning  to  use  either  saddle 
or  bridle,  though  the  cavalry  division,  which 
consisted  of  Spaniards,  employed  bridles  of  an 
elaborate  pattern. 

How  wholly  superior  Hannibal's  cavalry  proved 
to  be  to  the  Gallic  horsemen  placed  by  Scipio  in 
the  front  line  of  his  javelin  throwers  is  well 
known  to  students  of  history.  Indeed  it  was 


PARTHIANS   AND   IBERIANS          65 

said  that  Hannibal's  horsemen  were  superior  even 
to  the  Italian  and  the  Roman  cavalry,  which  was 
high  praise. 


Probably  from  about  the  year  200  B.C.,  possibly 
from  an  even  earlier  period,  the  Romans  used 
spurs,  apparently  the  common  prick  spurs  which 
remained  in  vogue  until  towards  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century  A.D.  Some  half-a-century 
later,  or  about  the  year  150  B.C.,  there  were 
issued  in  succession  a  series  of  Gaulish  silver 
coins,  the  majority  of  which  bore  upon  one 
side  the  impression  of  a  horseman,  though  com- 
paratively few  showed  the  chariot  at  one  time  so 
generally  represented  on  coins. 

This  leads  naturally  to  the  inference  that  the 
popularity  of  the  chariot  was  already  waning. 
Chariots,  however,  continued  to  appear  upon 
the  gold  coins  made  in  imitation  of  the  gold 
stater  of  Philip  II.  of  Macedon,  coins  that  bore 
on  the  face  Apollo's  head,  on  the  reverse  a  two- 
horse  chariot. 

Exceptionally  fine  horses,  probably  with  Liber- 
ian  blood  in  them,  must  have  been  owned  by  the 
Iberians  and  Celtiberians  at  about  the  period 
the  Stoic  philosopher  Posidonius  was  travelling 
in  Western  Europe,  and  when  he  incidentally 
visited  Spain — about  the  year  90  B.C.  Posi- 


66  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

donius  himself  remarks  that  the  cavalry  of  the 
Iberians  was  trained  to  travel  over  mountains, 
adding  that  these  horses  too  would  crouch  when 
told  to,  in  order  that  their  riders  might  mount  or 
dismount  with  greater  ease. 

A  method  to  which  this  cavalry  sometimes  had 
recourse  consisted  in  their  mounting  two  men  on 
one  animal.  Then,  in  the  heat  of  action,  one 
of  the  men  would  fight  on  foot,  the  other  re- 
maining by  to  defend  him  if  hard  pressed.  The 
same  philosopher  tells  us  that  the  horses  of  the 
Parthians  and  Celtiberians  "  indeed  were  superior 
to  all  other  breeds  in  fleetness  and  endurance." 


CHAPTER   IV 

Virgil  on  the  points  of  a  horse — Caesar's  invasion — Abolition  of 
war  chariots — Precursor  of  the  horseshoe — Nero's  2000  mules 
shod  with  silver  ;  Poppaea's  shod  with  gold — The  Ossianic  and 
Cuchulainn  epic  cycles  ;  Cuchulainn's  horses — The  Iceni  on  New- 
market Heath  ;  early  horse  racing  in  Britain — Horses  immolated 
by  the  Romans ;  white  horses  as  prognosticators  —  Caligula's 
horse,  Incitatus ;  Celer,  the  horse  of  Verus  ;  the  horse  of 
Belisarius 

TTIRGIL,  whose  famous  "  Georgics  "  was  pub- 
lished about  the  year  29  B.C.,  incidentally 
shows  how  close  the  connection  was  that  in  his 
time  existed  between  men  and  their  horses — 
that  is,  in  so  far  as  the  former  would  probably  have 
gained  comparatively  few  victories  and  made  but 
little  headway  in  civilisation  had  they  not  been 
materially  helped  by  "man's  friend  and  ally, 
the  horse." 

According  to  Virgil,  in  the  years  just  before 
Christ  the  colour  least  liked  in  horses  intended 
for  work  was  white.  "  Yellow  "  also  was  objected 
to,  the  prevalent  belief  being  that  white  or  dun 
horses  must  ipso  facto  be  of  weak  constitution. 
White  markings  were  not  disliked,  however,  and 
we  read  that  Virgil's  Roman  youth  rode  "a 
Thracian  steed  of  two  colours,"  it  had  a  white  fore 
foot  and  a  forehead  with  a  white  patch.  The 
67 


68  THE   HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

charger  ridden  by  Turnus  was  also  a  Thracian 
horse,  with  markings  somewhat  similar. 

The  following  description  in  the  third  book 
of  Virgil's  "Georgics"  gives  us  most  likely  an 
approximate  idea  of  some  points  that  were  looked 
for  in  a  good  horse  in  the  last  century  B.C.  : — 

"  Choose  with  like  care  the  courser's  generous  breed, 
And  from  his  birth  prepare  the  parent  steed. 
His  colour  mark,  select  the  glossy  bay, 
And  to  the  white  or  dun  prefer  the  grey. 
As  yet  a  colt  he  stalks  with  lofty  pace, 
And  balances  his  limbs  with  flexile  grace : 
First  leads  the  way,  the  threatening  torrent  braves, 
And  dares  the  unknown  arch  that  spans  the  waves. 
Light  on  his  airy  crest  his  slender  head, 
His  belly  short,  his  loins  luxuriant  spread  : 
Muscle  on  muscle  knots  his  brawny  breast, 
No  fear  alarms  him,  nor  vain  shouts  molest. 
But  at  the  clash  of  arms,  his  ear  afar 
Drinks  the  deep  sound,  and  vibrates  to  the  war : 
Flames  from  each  nostril  roll  in  gathered  stream, 
His  quivering  limbs  with  restless  motion  gleam, 
O'er  his  right  shoulder,  floating  full  and  fair, 
Sweeps  his  thick  mane,  and  spreads  its  pomp  of  hair : 
Swift  works  his  double  spine,  and  earth  around 
Rings  to  his  solid  hoof  that  wears  the  ground." 

Though  chariots  were  still  in  use  among  the 
Belgic  tribes  who  inhabited  the  south-eastern 
portion  of  the  island  when,  in  55  B.C.,  Caesar 
invaded  Britain,  cavalry  must  have  been  coming 
into  vogue  with  them,  for  we  read  that  "no 
sooner  were  these  tribes  warned  to  be  prepared 


CAESAR'S   INVASION  69 

for  Caesar's  contemplated  invasion  than  they  sent 
forward  cavalry  and  charioteers,  which  formed 
their  chief  arm  in  warfare." 

The  people  of  North  Britain,  however,  still  paid 
but  little  attention  to  the  advice  of  the  more  in- 
telligent among  their  chiefs  that  cavalry  ought 
to  be  adopted  and  chariots  entirely  discarded, 
the  principle  of  ultra-conservatism  which  remains 
one  of  the  most  marked  characteristics  of  the 
British  nation  at  the  present  day  being  apparently 
in  force  even  in  Caesar's  time. 

By  this  period  the  Gauls,  as  Caesar  soon 
found  out,  had  become  a  nation  composed  almost 
wholly  of  knights.  Yet  whether  the  aboriginal 
horse  of  the  first  yeomanry  of  Kent  that  met 
Caesar  upon  his  landing  belonged  to  the  breed 
believed  to  have  been  imported  by  the  Celts  or 
Germans,  or  whether  they  were  descendants  of 
the  horses  known  to  have  been  largely  bred 
when  Hannibal's  warlike  expeditions  into  Spain, 
Gaul  and  Italy  were  over,  is  not  known. 

Of  interest  it  is  to  be  told  that  the  men 
who  invaded  this  country  under  the  banner  of 
the  White  Horse  greatly  valued  the  particular 
breed  of  horses  they  found  here,  and  that  in 
consequence  their  descendants  in  later  centuries 
cut  upon  the  chalk  cliffs  of  the  Berkshire  downs 
near  Ilsley  and  Wantage  the  rough  figures  of 
horses  that  remain  there  to  this  day. 

We  have  it  on  the  authority  of  several  of  the 


70  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

most  trustworthy  of  our  early  historians  that  by 
about  the  end  of  the  third  century  B.C.,  at  latest, 
the  Gauls  of  northern  Italy  had  become  a  race  of 
horsemen  ;  that  by  about  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  B.C.  the  majority  of  the  Transalpine 
Gauls  had  done  the  same  ;  and  that  by  Caesar's 
time  even  the  Belgic  tribes  of  the  Continent 
had  practically  abandoned  the  war  chariot  that 
the  Romans  had  deemed  so  helpful. 

Apparently  the  horses  employed  by  the 
Roman  warriors  were  of  a  better  stamp  than 
those  which  belonged  to  the  Gauls  of  Northern 
Italy. 

It  is  well  known  that  Caesar's  opinion  of  the 
value  of  chariots  in  war  was,  to  say  the  least, 
rather  inflated.  His  description  of  the  action  of 
war  chariots  during  an  engagement  is  of  itself 
almost  sufficient  to  prove  this. 

"At  the  first  onset,"  he  writes,  "they  [the 
warriors]  drove  the  cars  in  all  directions,  hurled 
their  javelins,  and  by  the  din  and  clatter  of 
horses  and  wheels  commonly  threw  the  ranks 
of  the  enemy  into  disorder. 

"Then,  making  their  way  amongst  the  squad- 
rons of  the  enemy's  cavalry,  they  leaped  down 
from  the  chariots  and  fought  on  foot. 

"  Little  by  little  the  charioteers  withdrew  out 
of  the  fight  and  placed  their  chariots  in  such  a 
way  that  if  they  were  hard  pressed  by  the  enemy 
they  could  readily  retreat  to  their  own  side. 


VALUE    OF    CHARIOTS   IN    WAR      71 

"Thus  in  battle  they  afforded  the  mobility  of 
cavalry,  and  the  steadiness  of  infantry. 

"  Daily  practice  enabled  them  to  pull  up  their 
horses  when  in  full  speed  on  a  slope  or  steep 
declivity,  to  check  or  turn  them  in  a  narrow 
space,  to  run  out  on  the  pole  and  stand  on  the 
yoke,  and  to  get  nimbly  back  again  into  the 
chariot." 

All  of  which  sounds  simple  and  delightful.  In 
practice,  however,  it  did  not  often  "work  out." 
For  too  frequently  the  wheels  of  the  chariots  be- 
came clogged,  sometimes  they  jammed  in  the 
wheels  of  other  chariots — not  necessarily  the 
enemy's — and  frequently  the  horses,  driven  to 
frenzy  by  pain  and  terror,  stampeded  on  all  sides. 

Therefore  the  "steadiness  of  infantry,"  of 
which  Caesar  talks  so  glibly,  must  in  many 
instances  have  existed  purely  in  his  imagination, 
and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  warriors, 
carried  away  nolens  volens  by  their  frenzied 
horses,  often  "retreated  readily  to  their  own 
side  "  long  before  the  enemy  pressed  them  to  do 
so,  a  regrettable  incident  which  Caesar  passes 
over  with  perfunctory  comment.  And  perhaps  he 
is  not  to  be  found  fault  with  for  doing  this,  seeing 
that  similar  tactics  have  been  indulged  in  by  many 
of  the  most  successful  of  our  military  strategists 
of  modern  times. 

Probably  by  Caesar's  time  the  practice  of 
placing  a  covering  of  some  sort  upon  the  backs 


72  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

of  "  saddle  "  horses  had  become  quite  common,  at 
least  amongst  the  Romans.  Among  German  tribes 
the  use  of  any  sort  of  covering  was  still  not  merely 
laughed  to  scorn,  but  deemed  to  be  actually 
effeminate,  disgraceful  and  a  mark  of  laziness. 

To  do  the  Germans  justice,  they  thoroughly 
acted  up  to  their  theory  in  this  connection,  for 
never,  when  riding  bareback,  did  they  fear  to  at- 
tack cavalry  equipped  with  the  horsecloth  termed 
an  ephippion,  which  means  literally  a  horse  cover. 

Referring  again  to  war  chariots,  Diodorus  tells 
us  almost  in  so  many  words  that  the  Celts  of  Gaul 
and  of  Northern  Italy  went  to  war  in  two-horse 
chariots  down  to  quite  a  late  date,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Homeric  Acheans.  These  chariots 
held  each  two  warriors,  or  a  warrior  and  a 
charioteer.  One  of  the  occupants  first  hurled 
a  spear  at  the  enemy  and  then  quickly  alighted 
to  finish  the  attack  on  foot ;  the  other  occupant 
managed  the  car. 

Though  Horace  himself  was  not  a  practical 
horseman,  the  views  which  he  expressed  upon 
the  subject  of  horses  and  of  horsemanship  are 
for  the  most  part  admirable.  In  common  with 
Xenophon  he  deemed  good  hoofs  to  be  an 
essential.  Listen  to  the  following  rather  amus- 
ing though  at  the  same  time  quite  sensible 
observations  uttered  by  Horace  in  one  of  his 
famous  "  Satires  "  : — 

"Swells,"  he  writes,  "when  they  buy  horses, 


PRECURSOR   OF   THE   HORSESHOE     73 

have  a  way  of  covering  them  up  when  they  look 
over  them,  for  fear  that  a  handsome  shape  set 
upon  tender  feet,  as  often  happens,  may  take  in 
the  buyer  as  he  hangs  open-mouthed  over  fine 
haunches,  small  head,  and  stately  neck.  And 
they  are  right." 

At  this  time  the  ancients  did  not  shoe  their 
horses,  though  it  is  generally  believed  that  the 
Romans  often  covered  the  hoofs  of  their  mules 
with  a  sort  of  cap  made  of  leather,  which  they 
then  tied  about  the  fetlock. 

These  caps  or  coverings  were  named  solece, 
and  in  the  majority  of  cases  had  a  thin  plate  or 
sole  made  of  iron.  Nero  is  said  to  have  used 
for  his  2000  mules  plates  made  of  silver  instead 
of  iron,  and  Pliny  declares  in  his  famous 
"Natural  History"  that  Nero's  ridiculous  wife, 
Poppsea,  used  plates  of  gold  for  the  same 
purpose. 

It  seems  more  than  likely  that  caps  of  this 
pattern  may  have  been  worn  by  some  at  least 
of  the  horses  of  the  immortal  Ten  Thousand,  for 
it  is  recorded  that  during  the  great  retreat  an 
Armenian  explained  to  a  group  of  Greeks  how 
best  to  protect  their  horses'  feet  when  snow  lay 
thick  upon  the  ground,  and  the  way  he  recom- 
mended was  to  wrap  them  up  as  described. 


74  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

In  the  early  history  of  Ireland  we  find  references. 
There  is  an  Irish  epic  cycle  said  to  be  quite  one  of 
the  oldest  known — the  cycle  of  Cuchulainn — in 
which  the  warriors  all  fight  from  chariots  and  do 
terrible  things.  In  this  respect  the  poems  of  the 
Ossianic  cycle  are  different,  from  which  it  has 
been  inferred  that  the  latter  were  written  later. 

If  this  was  so  it  helps  to  bear  out  the  argument 
that  chariots  went  steadily  out  of  use  as  cavalry 
came  more  and  more  into  vogue.  Various  dates 
have  been  assigned  to  the  "  Cuchulainn  Saga," 
but  from  the  records  that  exist  it  seems  safe  to 
say  that  the  original  poem  must  have  been  written 
in  Pagan  times — the  events  referred  to  in  it  are 
supposed  to  have  occurred  about  the  first  century 
B.C. — though  probably  it  was  revised  and  added  to 
in  later  years. 

Indeed  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  as  early  as 
the  seventh  century  A.D.  some  of  these  poems 
were  already  deemed  to  be  of  great  antiquity. 

Cuchulainn's  horses  are  described  at  length  in 
"  The  Wooing  of  Emer."  They  were  "  alike  in 
size,  beauty,  fierceness  and  speed.  Their  manes 
were  long  and  curly,  and  they  had  curling  tails. 
The  right-hand  horse  was  a  grey  horse,  broad 
in  the  haunches,  fierce,  swift  and  wild  ;  the  other 
was  jet-black,  his  head  firmly  knit,  and  he  was 
broad-hoofed  and  slender  ;  long  and  curly  were 
his  mane  and  tail.  Down  his  broad  forehead 
hung  heavy  curls  of  hair." 


THE  ICENI   ON  NEWMARKET  HEATH     75 

We  are  further  told  "  that  was  the  one  chariot 
which  the  host  of  the  horses  of  the  chariots  of 
Ulster  could  not  follow  on  account  of  the  swift- 
ness and  speed  of  the  chariot  and  of  the  chariot 
chief  who  sat  in  it." 

These  peerless  animals  were  guided  by  "two 
firm-plaited  yellow  reins,"  and  presumably  the 
black  with  "long  and  curly  mane  and  tail"  was 
of  Spanish  or  Gaulish  blood. 

Soon  after  the  coming  of  Christ,  or  probably 
about  the  year  60  A.D.,  a  tribe  referred  to  as  the 
Iceni  is  known  to  have  lived  on  what  is  now 
called  Newmarket  Heath,  and  to  have  owned 
horses,  apparently  in  great  numbers. 

Tacitus  speaks  of  the  Iceni,  who  must  have 
been  a  greater  and  more  powerful  people  than 
the  majority  of  modern  historians  lead  us  to  infer. 
Again,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  nearly  all  the 
gold  and  silver  coins  of  the  Iceni  bear  upon  one 
side  the  impression  of  a  horse.  Caesar  refers 
to  the  Iceni  as  a  race  that  dwelt  in  Cambridge- 
shire, Huntingdonshire,  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  and 
Tacitus  wrote  practically  to  the  same  effect. 

Though  horse  racing  is  spoken  of  incidentally 
as  having  been  indulged  in  early  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  era,  quite  the  earliest  bond-fide  horse 
races  that  took  place  in  England,  of  which  we 
have  authentic  record,  were  those  organised  about 
the  time  of  the  Emperor  Severus  Alexander, 
or  towards  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  A.D. 


76  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

The  meeting  was  held  at  Netherby,  in  York- 
shire. 

These  races  were  run  apparently  not  long  be- 
fore the  assassination  of  the  ill-starred  emperor 
in  222  by  the  soldiers  whom  Maximus  had  cor- 
rupted. At  other  stations  as  well  horse  races  took 
place  during  the  Roman  occupation,  and  Carleon, 
Silchester,  Rushborough  and  Dorchester  are  men- 
tioned as  being  among  the  localities  which  had  to 
do  with  the  very  primitive  "  Turf  "  of  that  period. 

Perhaps  the  undeniable  superiority  of  the 
British  thoroughbred  over  the  horses  of  other 
nations  to-day  may  in  a  measure  be  due  to  the 
time  and  attention  the  Romans  of  that  era  devoted 
to  the  importation  of  horses  of  Eastern  blood. 
This  seems  more  likely  still  to  be  the  case 
when  we  remember  that  the  majority  of  the  best 
of  the  English  mares  were  crossed  with  Arabian 
stallions  in  the  years  that  followed,  and  that  a 
succession  of  such  stallions  was  imported  through- 
out the  early  and  the  Middle  Ages,  and  from  that 
time  onward  right  down  through  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  as  we  shall 
see  presently. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  era  of  the  Saxon  kings 
an  Arab  steed  had  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
recognised  royal  gift.  According  to  one  authority, 
indeed,  Boadicea,  the  intrepid  queen  who  led  the 
Iceni  against  the  Roman  invaders,  was  greatly 
attached  to  her  horses. 


EARLY    HORSE   RACING   IN   BRITAIN     77 

Most  likely  she  was  attached  to  them,  however, 
only  because  they  helped  her  so  materially  in 
her  raids  upon  her  enemies.  To  pretend  that 
"the  sturdy  queen,"  as  one  historian  nicknames 
her,  harboured  anything  in  the  least  approaching 
a  sympathetic  or  a  sentimental  affection  for  any 
particular  horse  would  be  the  acme  of  all  that  is 
grotesque. 

Haydn  has  the  misplaced  gallantry  to  allude  to 
Boadicea  as  "the  heroic  queen."  That  her  good 
fortune  in  possessing  horses  with  considerable 
staying  power  enabled  her  to  win  her  great 
victory  at  Verulam  is  now  common  history. 
Therefore  we  read  with  the  more  interest  that 
"  this  relentless  queen  destroyed  London  and 
other  places,  slaughtering  many  Romans,  but 
at  last  she  was  overcome  near  London,  by  Suet- 
onius, and  she  ended  by  committing  suicide." 

In  the  second  century  A.D.  the  Arabs  probably 
had  not  begun  to  breed  horses,  for  at  that  time 
we  do  not  hear  of  Arab  horses  being  held  in  the 
high  esteem  with  which  they  later  came  to  be 
regarded  by  the  British  nation. 

Yet  even  before  this,  or  towards  the  middle  of 
the  first  century  A.D.,  the  sport  of  chariot  racing 
had  become  immensely  popular,  and  the  sums 
spent  upon  organising  the  races,  training  the 
horses  that  were  to  be  entered  for  competition, 
and  in  purchasing  prizes  to  be  bestowed  upon  the 
victors,  may  justly  be  said  to  have  been  enormous 


78  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

if  we  bear  in  mind  the  purchasing  value  of  the 
coinage  of  the  period. 

That  the  Romans  were  given  to  sacrificing 
horses  to  their  gods,  Pliny  the  elder  has  made 
plain  to  us.  He  is  said  to  have  written  an  ex- 
haustive work  upon  steeds  of  a  certain  stamp, 
but  unfortunately  the  book  must  have  been 
destroyed  in  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius  in  79  A.D., 
when  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  were  buried,  and 
some  200,000  human  beings  killed,  among  them 
Pliny. 

As  he  points  out  in  his  "  Natural  History," 
however,  the  sacrifices  of  horses  took  place 
frequently,  especially  upon  occasions  of  public 
solemnity,  and  he  mentions  that  horses  to  be 
immolated  were  not  allowed  to  be  touched  even 
by  the  Flamen. 

Whether  or  no  the  Romans  habitually  sacrificed 
white  horses,  after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks, 
Illyrians  and  Persians,  is  not  stated.  They  did, 
however,  harness  white  horses  to  their  chariots 
upon  these  and  other  state  occasions,  and  thus  we 
read  that  when  Julius  Caesar  returned  from  Africa 
the  quadriga  in  which  he  drove  was,  by  order  of 
the  Senate,  drawn  by  milk-white  steeds. 

Tacitus  tells  us  that  on  some  occasions  when 
a  distinguished  chief  died  the  dead  man's  horse 
was  cremated  on  the  funeral  pyre  beside  its 
master's  body,  and  we  know  that  the  superstitious 
beliefs  of  the  Persians  were  upon  a  par  with  those 


CALIGULA   ON   HORSEBACK.      ABOUT   37   A.D. 
From  a  figure  in  the  British  Museum 


WHITE  HORSES  AS  PROGNOSTICATORS   79 

of  their  Germanic  kinsmen  in  so  far  as  the  im- 
molation of  horses  was  concerned. 

In  some  instances  alleged  divination  of  the 
future  was  brought  about  by  the  aid  of  horses. 
Tacitus  himself  remarks  that  it  was  peculiar  to 
this  people  (the  Germans)  "  to  seek  from  horses 
omens  and  monitions." 

"  Kept  at  the  public  expense  in  these  same 
woods  and  groves,"  he  continues,  "are  white 
horses,  pure  from  the  taint  of  earthly  labour. 
These  are  yoked  to  a  sacred  chariot  and  accom- 
panied by  the  priests  and  the  king,  or  chief  of 
the  tribe,  who  note  their  neighings  and  snortings. 
No  species  of  divination  is  more  to  be  trusted, 
not  only  by  the  people  and  by  the  nobility,  but 
also  by  the  priests,  who  regard  themselves  as  the 
ministers  of  the  gods,  and  the  horses  as  acquainted 
with  their  will." 

Amusing,  but  probably  more  or  less  fictitious, 
stories  of  Incitatus,  the  notorious  horse  of  the 
Roman  emperor,  Caligula,  have  been  handed 
down  to  us.  That  this  beast  had  the  absurd 
honour  conferred  upon  it  of  being  elected  priest 
and  consul  we  must  believe,  and  there  probably 
is  truth  in  the  statement  that  it  ate  regularly  out 
of  an  ivory  manger  and  drank  from  a  golden 
pail. 

But  we  must  accept  with  reservation  the  story 
that  the  horse  alone  had  eighteen  attendants  in 
gorgeous  apparel  or  livery  to  attend  to  it.  Almost 


8o  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

equally  fantastic  are  the  tales  told  of  the  famous 
horse  that  belonged  to  the  Roman  emperor, 
Verus,  in  the  second  century  A.D.  Celer  by 
name,  it  ate  nothing  but  almonds  and  raisins, 
and  its  stable  was  a  suite  of  apartments  in  the 
emperor's  principal  palace.  In  place  of  horse 
clothing  it  wore  a  garment  of  royal  purple. 

I  need  hardly  repeat  that  these  and  similar 
stories  that  have  been  handed  down  to  us  must 
be  received  with  considerable  scepticism. 

A  description,  probably  true,  of  what  were 
deemed  in  the  first  century  A.D.  to  be  the  best 
points  about  a  horse,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
"  Eclogues."  The  lines,  translated,  run  some- 
what as  follows  : — 

"  My  beast  displays 
A  deep-set  back ;  a  head  and  neck 
That  tossing  proudly  feel  no  check 
From  over-bulk ;  feet  fashioned  slight, 
Thin  flanks,  and  brow  of  massive  height ; 
While  in  its  narrow  horny  sheath 
A  well-turned  hoof  is  bound  beneath." 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  A.D. 
the  popularity  of  what  must  be  described  as  circus 
riding  would  seem  to  have  increased  rather 
suddenly,  and  we  read  that  at  about  this  time 
the  Sicilian  horses  were  nearly  as  much  in  de- 
mand for  public  performances  and  processions  as 
the  Cappadocian  and  the  Spanish.  Though  such 
performances  must  have  been  primitive  indeed  by 


ROMAN    SADDLES  81 

comparison  with  even  the  simpler  of  the  feats  we 
see  performed  to-day,  they  were  then  deemed 
marvellous  in  the  extreme,  and  people  came  from 
far  and  near  to  witness  them. 

This  probably  was  in  a  measure  due  to  the 
general  love  of  riding  that  prevailed  amongst 
the  wealthier  classes  at  that  period.  Indeed  the 
possession  of  a  large  stud  of  horses  was  in  many 
parts  of  Greece,  and  especially  in  Athens,  con- 
sidered the  hall-mark  of  what  we  should  term 
to-day  a  man  of  culture,  in  the  same  way  that 
the  possession  of  horses,  hounds  and  hawks  was 
supposed  to  mark  the  aristocrat  in  Mediaeval  times. 

Thus  a  man  often  would  be  named  after  the 
class  of  horse  he  owned.  Xanthippus  meant 
"He  of  the  dun  horses";  Leucippus,  "He  of 
the  white  horses";  and  Melanippus,  "He  of 
the  black  horses." 


By  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  A.D.  the 
Romans  apparently  had  outgrown  their  pre- 
judice against  the  use  of  saddles,  for  at  about 
that  time  the  saddle  is  referred  to  with  some 
frequency.  Certain  it  is  that  in  380  A.D.  the 
famous  cavalrymen  of  Theodosius  were  mounted 
on  horses  provided  with  true  saddles — that  is  to 
say  saddles  with  a  tree,  also  with  a  bow  in  front 
and  behind. 


82  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Generally  a  cloth  or  numner  was  worn  beneath 
saddles,  but  it  is  known  that  at  one  time  Roman 
horses  suffered  from  sore  backs  owing  probably 
to  the  way  the  Roman  soldiers  sat  their  horses 
when  saddles  first  came  into  vogue.  Soon  after 
this  it  was  that  the  saddle  came  to  be  known  as 
"the  chair,"  presumably  because  of  the  Latin 
word  sella,  from  which  we  have  the  French  noun, 
selle,  meaning  saddle. 

Some  famous  horses  are  referred  to  in  the  re- 
cords of  the  sixth  century,  but  little  is  said  of 
their  history.  Thus  we  have  the  Persian  steed 
of  Chosroes,  called  Shibdiz,  a  name  signifying 
"fleeter  than  the  wind."  Apparently  he  was  a 
famous  charger,  for  we  read  that  he  carried  his 
master  safely  through  several  important  engage- 
ments. Yet  he  was  used  for  other  purposes. 

The  story  of  King  Arthur  is  so  closely  bound 
up  with  fable  and  fiction  that  the  truth  is  difficult 
to  get  at.  He  must  have  owned  many  good 
horses,  however,  of  which  Spumador — a  word 
signifying  "the  foaming  one" — and  the  mare 
Lamri  were  perhaps  the  most  renowned.  There 
are,  nevertheless,  historians  who  maintain  that 
these  horses  never  actually  existed. 

Sir  Tristram's  charger,  Passe  Brewell,  men- 
tioned in  the  "  History  of  King  Arthur,"  and 
elsewhere,  is  another  animal  around  which  "a 
web  of  imaginative  description,"  as  one  writer 
terms  it  has  been  woven.  Consequently  we  shall 


HORSES    OF   THE   SWEDES  83 

be  well  advised  to  pass  these  fables  by  without 


comment. 


In  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century  the  practice 
of  regularly  shoeing  horses  apparently  came  into 
vogue,  for  shoes  are  referred  to  in  the  records  of 
the  ways  and  customs  of  the  famous  Emperor 
Justinian.  It  seems  certain,  however,  that  the 
shoes  fashioned  at  about  that  period  were  clumsy 
in  design,  also  needlessly  heavy.  Specimens  of 
them  have  from  time  to  time  been  discovered, 
and  it  is  said  one  was  found  in  the  tomb  of  King 
Childeric,  the  date  of  whose  death  is  placed  so 
far  back  as  460  A.D. 

Though  Tacitus,  who  wrote  between  80  and 
116  A.D.,  does  not  allude  to  the  horses  of  the 
Swedes,  it  is  certain  that  about  the  sixth  century 
A.D.  the  Swedes  had  become  not  only  a  race  of 
fine  horsemen,  but  owners  of  magnificent  horses. 
Indeed  in  550  A.D.,  or  thereabouts,  Jornandes 
went  so  far  as  to  compare  them  favourably  with 
the  race  of  Thuringians. 

Probably  it  was  in  a  measure  owing  to  the 
intense  devotion  of  the  Swedish  king,  Adhils, 
to  horses  and  to  all  that  appertained  to  them  that 
the  Swedish  nation  became  so  renowned  for  their 
horses  and  their  horsemanship.  Then,  though 
the  Arabs  had  no  horses  at  the  beginning  of  the 


84  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Christian  era,  they  probably  were  breeding  them 
in  great  numbers  by  the  beginning  of  the  sixth 
century  A.D.,  for  it  was  due  mainly  to  a  quarrel 
at  about  that  time  over  a  famous  horse  named 
Dahis  that  two  formidable  tribes  entered  into  a 
deadly  and  long-drawn-out  struggle. 

At  about  this  period  the  Romans  began  to  pay 
almost  fastidious  attention  to  the  colour  of  their 
horses.  The  colour  most  preferred  for  a  war 
horse  was  dark  brown,  chestnut,  or  bay,  with  a 
white  blaze  up  the  face,  or  a  white  patch  or  star 
upon  the  forehead.  Light-coloured  horses  were 
avoided  as  much  as  possible,  except  when  the 
animals  were  needed  for  processions,  and  so 
forth. 

A  graphic  description  is  given  of  a  fierce  com- 
bat between  approximately  1000  of  Justinian's 
cavalry,  led  by  the  renowned  general,  Belisarius, 
and  an  equal  number  of  Goths. 

The  latter,  determined  to  enter  Rome,  had 
crossed  the  Tiber,  when  the  column  of  Belisarius 
came  upon  them  suddenly. 

The  engagement  began  at  once. 

We  are  told  that  "  Belisarius  himself  fought 
like  a  common  soldier,"  as  the  bravest  of  the 
chiefs  of  that  period  sometimes  did.  He  was 
astride  one  of  his  favourite  and  best-trained 
chargers,  a  horse  described  as  having  "all  his 
body  dark-coloured,  but  his  face  pure  white  from 
the  top  of  the  head  to  the  nose." 


THE  HORSE   OF  BELTS ARIUS          85 

An  animal  so  marked  was  termed  by  the 
Greeks  phalios,  and  by  the  barbarians  balas, 
words  signifying  "bald."  While  the  battle  was 
in  progress  a  number  of  Belisarius'  soldiers  left 
his  ranks  and  joined  the  Goths'.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  suddenly  Belisarius  heard  shouts  from 
the  enemy's  lines,  and  the  cries  distinctly  audible  : 

"  Belisarius  rides  the  bald-faced  horse  !  Strike 
him !  Slay  it !" 

And  most  likely  the  bald-faced  horse  and  his 
gallant  rider  would  have  been  slaughtered  had 
Belisarius'  bodyguard  not  hastened  to  rally  round 
him  and  eventually  succeeded  in  beating  off  his 
assailants,  many  of  whom,  earlier  in  the  day,  had 
fought  beside  him. 


CHAPTER   V 

Mahomet  encourages  horse-breeding — Procopius  ;  a  misstate- 
ment — Early  allusion  to  horse  races — Figures  of  horses  cut  on 
cliffs  —  Roland  and  his  horse,  Veillantiff  —  Orelia,  Roderick's 
charger — Trebizond,  Alfana  ;  Odin's  mythical  horse,  Sleipnir — 
Horse  fighting  in  Iceland — Some  horses  of  mythology  :  Pegasus, 
Selene,  Xanthos,  Balios,  Cyllaros,  Arion,  Reksh — Arab  pedigrees 
traced  through  dams — Influence  of  the  horse  upon  history- 
Courage  of  Julius  Caesar's  horses 

/T-VHE  coming  of  Mahomet,  who  announced 
-^  himself  prophet  about  the  year  611  A.D., 
marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  nations,  and  it 
serves  also  as  a  landmark,  if  one  may  express  it 
so,  in  the  horse's  progress  in  its  bearing  upon  the 
world's  history. 

At  intervals  throughout  the  Koran,  which 
Mahomet  compiled  probably  about  610,  we  come 
upon  direct  allusions  to  the  horse  in  the  part  it 
played  at  that  time  in  the  growth  of  what  must  be 
termed  civilisation.  Probably  Mahomet  realised 
more  fully  than  any  of  his  contemporaries  how 
indispensable  to  the  human  race  the  horse  had  by 
this  time  become,  for  in  one  passage  in  the  Koran 
he  puts  a  strange  utterance  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Almighty,  whom  he  represents  as  apostrophising 
the  horse,  telling  it  that  it  shall  be  ''for  man  a 
source  of  happiness  and  wealth,"  adding,  "thy 

86 


MAHOMET   ENCOURAGES   BREEDING     87 

back  shall  be  a  seat  of  honour,  and  thy  belly  of 
riches,  and  every  grain  of  barley  given  to  thee 
shall  purchase  indulgence  for  the  sinner,"  while 
in  another  place  he  declares  that  "  every  grain  of 
barley  given  to  a  horse  is  entered  by  God  in  the 
Register  of  Good  Works." 

He  describes  in  an  interesting  way  the  horse 
of  the  Archangel  Gabriel,  to  which  the  name 
Haizum  was  given,  also  Dhuldul,  the  peerless 
steed  of  his  son-in-law,  AH,  and  his  own  milk- 
white  mule,  Fadda.  All  this  is  the  more  remark- 
able when  we  bear  in  mind  that  in  the  centuries 
that  preceded  Mahomet's  birth  the  Arab  race 
was  practically  a  nonentity  in  so  far  as  the  con- 
tinual struggles  for  supremacy  in  Egypt  and  in 
Western  Asia  were  concerned,  when  the  great 
Assyrian,  Babylonian,  Egyptian,  Persian,  Median, 
Roman  and  Macedonian  tribes  fought  with  such 
dogged  determination  and  proved  each  in  turn 
more  or  less  victorious. 

Yet  it  is  more  than  likely — some  of  our 
leading  historians  pronounce  positively  upon  this 
point — that  if  in  the  years  just  before  Mahomet's 
birth  the  tribes  had  not  become  possessed  of  a 
staunch  race  of  horses,  and  devoted  much  time  to 
perfecting  themselves  in  horsemanship  in  the  true 
meaning  of  the  term,  Islam  would  have  remained 
unchanged  instead  of  almost  revolutionising  the 
world  in  the  way  it  did. 

Small  wonder,  therefore,  that  Mahomet  was  en- 


88  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

thusiastic — unduly  enthusiastic  many  even  among 
his  disciples  maintained  him  to  be — in  striving  to 
promote  among  his  own  people  a  fondness  for 
horses.  Undoubtedly  it  was  owing  to  this  that 
when  at  last  Mahomet  died  some  of  the  best- 
bred  steeds  in  existence  were  to  be  found  among 
the  horses  in  the  region  of  Nejd. 

In  Mahomet's  era  it  was  that  stirrups  first 
came  to  be  used  regularly  by  both  cavalry  and 
what  were  termed  "  private  horsemen"  —  the 
latter  we  should  to-day  call  civilians.  True 
stirrups  most  likely  were  invented  and  introduced 
by  the  Teutonic  people  of  the  Lower  Rhine  and 
the  region  adjoining,  for  we  know  there  was  no 
Latin  or  Greek  term  for  a  stirrup,  and  as  the 
Teutonic  tribes  were  large  men  of  heavy  build 
they  naturally  would  be  much  more  likely  to 
feel  the  need  of  assistance  when  mounting  than 
would  men  of  small  stature,  light  and  agile,  who 
must  have  been  able  to  vault  on  to  their  horses 
without  difficulty. 

The  English  term  " stirrup"  probably  is  a 
contraction  of  the  early  English  "stige-rap,"  a 
word  that  comes  from  "stigan,"  to  mount,  and 
"rap,"  rope — in  short,  a  mounting-rope.  In  the 
eighth  century  A.D.  the  Angles  were  using  saddle 
horses  in  large  numbers,  according  to  the  Vener- 
able Bede,  some  of  whose  writings,  however,  are 
said  not  to  bear  the  impress  of  strict  veracity. 
Yet  it  is  probable  that  he  speaks  of  what  he 


PROCOPIUS;    A   MISSTATEMENT       89 

knew  when  he  tells  us  that  about  the  year  631 
A.D.  "the  English  first  began  to  saddle  horses," 
while  many  of  the  horsemen  who  opposed  the 
incursion  of  the  hordes  of  Romans  are  known 
beyond  dispute  to  have  been  mounted  on  saddled 
horses. 

Mention  of  the  mare,  Alborak,  called  also 
Borak,  must  be  made — though  only  a  mythical 
animal  —  as  she  was  said  to  have  carried 
Mahomet  from  earth  into  the  seventh  heaven. 
"She  was  milk-white,"  we  are  told,  like  Fadda, 
the  mule,  with  "the  wings  of  an  eagle  and  a 
human  face  with  a  horse's  cheeks,"  while  "  every 
pace  she  took  was  equal  to  the  farthest  range 
of  human  sight."  In  Arabic  the  word  means 
literally  "the  lightning." 

Procopius,  who  wrote  in  the  sixth  century 
A.D.,  is  looked  upon  generally  as  a  dependable 
authority,  and  probably  upon  most  occasions 
he  wrote  the  truth.  Yet  he  would  seem  to  have 
made  one  or  two  rather  grave  misstatements 
when  speaking  of  the  horse  in  its  relation  to  the 
history  of  his  time. 

In  an  interesting  way  he  describes  certain  stir- 
ring scenes  in  the  war  between  the  Angli  who 
had  settled  in  Britain  and  the  Varni — the  Werini 
of  the  "Leges  Barbarorum" — whose  region  lay 
chiefly  east  of  the  Rhine.  The  direct  cause  of 
this  war  was  the  positive  refusal  of  the  king  of 
the  Varni  to  marry  an  Anglian  princess  to 


90  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

whom  he  had  been  affianced  for  a  considerable 
time. 

"These  islanders,"  wrote  Procopius,  referring 
to  the  Angli,  "are  the  most  valiant  of  all  the 
barbarians  with  whom  we  are  acquainted,  and 
they  fight  on  foot.  For  not  only  do  they  not 
know  how  to  ride,  but  it  is  their  lot  not  even 
to  know  what  a  horse  is  like,  since  in  this  island 
they  do  not  see  a  horse,  even  in  a  picture,  for 
this  animal  seems  never  to  have  existed  in 
Britain.  But  if  at  any  time  it  should  happen 
that  some  of  them,  either  on  an  embassy,  or  for 
some  other  reason,  should  be  living  with  Romans 
or  Franks,  or  with  anyone  else  that  hath  horses, 
and  it  should  there  be  necessary  for  them  to 
ride  on  horseback,  they  are  unable  to  mount,  but 
other  men  have  to  help  them  up  and  set  them  on 
their  horses'  backs  ;  and  again,  when  they  wish 
to  dismount,  they  have  to  be  lifted,  and  set  down 
on  the  ground.  Neither  are  the  Varni  horsemen, 
but  they  too  are  all  infantry.  Such  then  are 
these  barbarians." 

Clearly  he  misstated  facts  in  this  instance,  for 
it  is  beyond  dispute  that  horses  were  known  in 
Britain  at  the  time  to  which  he  refers.  For  the 
rest  the  description  may  be  considered  more  or 
less  accurate. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that 
whereas  in  the  tombs  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  the 
shield  and  the  weapons  of  the  buried  warrior  are 


EARLY  ALLUSION  TO  HORSE  RACING    91 

usually  discovered,  bits  and  harness  are  found  in 
these  tombs  in  rare  instances  only.  On  the  other 
hand  in  the  Scandinavian  barrows  in  Scotland 
the  bones  of  men  and  horses  mixed  have  been 
discovered  frequently. 


Perhaps  the  first  historical  allusion  to  horse 
racing,  as  we  understand  it  now,  and  to  "  running  " 
horses,  as  race  horses  continued  to  be  called  for 
many  centuries  afterwards,  is  the  one  that  occurs 
in  the  ninth  century  A.D.,  when  Hugh,  the 
founder  of  the  royal  house  of  Capet,  in  France, 
made  a  present  of  running  horses  to  King  Athel- 
stan  in  the  hope  that  in  return  the  king  might 
allow  him  to  wed  his  sister,  Ethelswitha. 

Hengist  and  Horsa  are  said  by  some  historians 
to  have  displayed  interest  in  horse  racing,  but  the 
statement  is  not  based  upon  indisputable  evidence, 
any  more  than  the  assertion  that  because  Hengist 
and  Horsa  are  alleged  by  one  historian  at  least 
to  have  given  the  order  that  forms  of  horses 
should  be  cut  upon  the  chalk  hills  of  Berkshire 
therefore  all  the  Saxon  banners  must  have  borne 
as  a  device  a  white  horse. 

The  white  horse  at  Wantage  other  historians 
declare  to  have  been  cut  in  commemoration  of 
Alfred's  great  victory  over  the  Danes  at  the 
battle  of  /Escendun  or  Ashtreehill,  during  the 


92  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

reign  of  his  brother,  Ethelred  I.  Its  length  is 
374  feet,  and  even  at  a  distance  of  nearly  fifteen 
miles  it  is  distinctly  visible  in  clear  weather.  This 
recalls  to  mind  the  device  of  the  House  of 
Hanover — a  white  horse  galloping  ;  and  of  the 
House  of  Savoy — a  white  horse  rampant. 

Mention  must  here  be  made  of  the  immortal 
Roland  and  his  equally  famous  horse,  Veillantiff, 
though  owing  to  the  pair  have  figured  so  largely 
in  romance  the  actual  truth  about  them  can  be 
traced  only  with  difficulty. 

We  may  take  it  for  granted,  however,  that 
Roland  was  the  son  of  Milo,  Duke  of  Aiglant ; 
that  he  was  Count  of  Mans  and  Knight  of  Blaives  ; 
and  that  his  mother  was  Bertha,  the  sister  of 
Charlemagne.  Orlando  is  the  name  by  which 
he  is  known  in  Italian  romance  ;  Vegliantino  the 
name  of  his  horse  ;  and  he  figures  prominently 
in  Theroulde's  "  Chanson  de  Roland,"  in  the 
romance,  "  Chroniq  de  Turpin,"  and  of  course  in 
Ariosto's  epic  of  Mad  Roland  and  Boiardo's 
"  Orlando  in  Love."  He  was  said  to  be  eight 
feet  tall  and  to  have  "an  open  countenance  which 
invited  confidence  and  inspired  respect,"  also  to 
have  been  "  brave,  loyal  and  simple-minded." 

The  story  of  his  slaying  at  Fronsac,  in  single 
combat,  the  Saracen  tyrant  and  giant,  Angoulaffre, 
as  described  in  "  Croquemitaine,"  naturally  is 
fiction.  He  desired,  it  was  said,  by  way  of  reward 
to  marry  Aude,  the  fair  daughter  of  Sir  Gerard  and 


ORELIA,   RODERICK'S   CHARGER       93 

Lady  Guibourg,  but  Roland  was  slain  at  Ronces- 
valles  in  the  Pyrenees  during  the  return  march 
from  Saragossa,  while  in  command  of  the  rear- 
guard, being  caught  "  together  with  the  flower  of 
the  French  chivalry "  in  an  ambuscade  and 
massacred  to  a  man.  Aude  is  said  to  have  died 
of  grief  upon  hearing  the  news. 

Roland's  horse,  Veillantiff,  must  have  been  an 
incomparable  charger  and  more  intelligent  than 
even  his  master,  for  it  is  related  that  whenever 
Roland  was  hard  pressed  Veillantiff  obtained 
knowledge  of  the  fact  in  some  mysterious  way 
and  at  once  carried  Roland  out  of  danger  so  far 
as  he  was  able. 

Equally  intelligent  in  this  respect  was  the 
charger  named  Orelia,  owned  by  Roderick,  the 
last  of  the  Goths.  According  to  Southey  this 
horse  too  was  renowned  for  its  shape  and  speed. 
Indeed  Southey  based  the  story  of  his  famous 
epic  upon  the  historical  record  of  the  defeat  of 
Roderick  in  711  A.D.,  at  the  battle  of  Guadalete, 
near  Xeres  de  la  Frontera.  Roderick,  the 
thirty  -  fourth  and  last  of  the  old  Visigothic 
kings,  himself  attributed  his  victories  in  a  great 
measure  to  the  courage  of  his  horses,  and 
apparently  he  was  proud  of  all  his  horses 
for  we  read  that  he  "  bitterly  bemoaned  the 
death  of  any  one  of  them."  Another  remark- 
able and  famous  steed  was  Trebizond,  the 
grey  charger  of  Admiral  Guarinos,  one  of 


94  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

the  French  knights  taken  prisoner  at  Ronces- 
valles. 

Alfana,  the  clever  mare  mentioned  in  Ariosto's 
"  Orlando  Furioso "  as  belonging  to  Gradasso, 
King  of  Sericana,  whom  Ariosto  describes'as  "  the 
bravest  of  the  Pagan  knights,"  has  many  legends 
attached  to  it. 

Thus  upon  occasions  Gradasso  who,  though 
famous  as  a  knight,  was  an  unconscionable  bully, 
would  treat  Alfana  with  grotesque  kindness,  at 
other  times  beating  it  unmercifully  ;  and  when, 
with  100,000  vassals  in  his  train,  "all  discrowned 
kings  "  (!)  who  never  addressed  him  except  upon 
their  knees,  he  went  to  war  against  Charlemagne, 
the  mare,  Alfana,  played  a  prominent  part. 


Though  in  these  pages  but  few  allusions  have 
been  made  to  the  horses  of  mythology,  modern 
interest  in  mythological  history  being  at  a  very 
low  ebb,  the  mysterious  eight-legged  grey  steed 
of  Odin,  chief  god  of  Scandinavia,  must  not 
be  passed  unnoticed.  His  name  was  Sleipnir, 
and  inasmuch  as  he  could  travel  over  earth  and 
oceari  he  was  deemed  to  be  typical  of  the  wind 
that  blows  over  land  and  water  from  eight  princi- 
pal and  far-distant  points. 

According  to  Beowulf — composed  probably  in 
the  eighth  century — the  Scandinavians  set  great 


HORSE   FIGHTING   IN   ICELAND       95 

value  upon  their  steeds,  especially  upon  their 
dun-coloured  horses,  their  apple-dun  horses  and 
their  white  horses.  Therefore  it  seems  almost 
odd  that  the  early  Norse  settlers  in  Iceland  should 
have  indulged  as  largely  as  they  undoubtedly  did 
in  the  brutal  "  sport "  of  horse  fighting,  a  form  of 
amusement  that  to  this  day  is  in  vogue  in  parts 
of  Siam. 

The  saga  of  Burnt  Njal,  with  its  scene  laid  in 
the  tenth  century,  refers  repeatedly  to  incidents 
in  which  the  horse  plays  a  chief  part.  The  de- 
scription of  the  mighty  encounter  between  the 
horse  of  Starkad  and  the  horse  of  Gunnar  of 
Lithend  is  peculiarly  disagreeable,  but  as  it  gives 
us  probably  a  very  accurate  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  these  horse  battles  were  arranged  and 
carried  out,  it  is  worth  quoting  almost  in  full. 

Starkad,  we  are  told,  had  "a  good  horse  of 
chestnut  hue,  and  it  was  thought  that  no  horse 
was  his  match  in  fight."  The  horse  that  Gunnar 
of  Lithend  decided  to  pit  against  it  was  a  brown. 
It  is  practically  upon  the  result  of  this  fight  that 
the  famous  tragedy  turns. 

"And  now  men  ride  to  the  horse  fight,"  we 
read,  "  and  a  very  great  crowd  was  gathered 
together.  Gunnar  and  his  friends  were  there, 
and  Starkad  and  his  sons.  .  .  .  Gunnar  was  in  a 
red  kirtle,  and  had  about  his  loins  a  broad  belt, 
and  a  riding  rod  in  his  hand.  Then  the  horses 
ran  at  one  another,  and  bit  each  other  long,  so 


96  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

that  there  was  no  need  for  anyone  to  touch  them, 
and  that  was  the  greatest  sport !  Then  Thorgeir 
and  Kol  made  up  their  minds  that  they  would 
push  their  horse  forward  just  as  the  horses  rushed 
together,  and  see  if  Gunnar  would  fall  before 
him. 

"  Now  the  horses  ran  at  one  another  again,  and 
both  Thorgeir  and  Kol  ran  alongside  their  horse's 
flank.  Gunnar  pushed  his  horse  against  them, 
and  what  happened  in  a  trice  was  this,  that 
Thorgeir  and  his  brother  fell  flat  down  on  their 
backs,  and  their  horse  atop  of  them  !  " 

Soon  after  this  the  horse  battle  developed  into 
a  serious  encounter  between  the  partisans  of  the 
respective  animals,  with  the  result  that  Gunnar's 
horse  had  an  eye  gouged  out  by  Thorgeir.  In 
the  library  at  Reykjavik  a  very  interesting  picture 
representing  a  horse  battle  of  this  kind  is  still  to 
be  seen. 


We  have  now  seen  how,  from  the  very  earliest 
time  until  the  eve  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  the 
horse  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  world's 
history.  More  than  any  other  animal  it  had 
helped,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  to  bring  about 
great  victories,  to  develop  and  strengthen  the 
courage  of  nations,  to  mould  the  character  of  men, 
and  to  add  in  several  ways  to  life's  pleasure. 


SOME   HORSES   OF   MYTHOLOGY      97 

That  the  horse  should  have  been  almost  wor- 
shipped by  the  very  tribes  who  offered  up  living 
horses  as  sacrifices  to  their  gods  has  been  pro- 
nounced paradoxical  by  some  writers  ;  yet  there 
was  nothing  inconsistent  about  this,  for  in  all 
times  when  sacrifices  have  been  common  those 
offering  sacrifice  have  given  what  they  most 
cherished  or  esteemed. 

What  is  remarkable  is  the  fact  that,  of  all 
animals  known  to  have  existed  in  the  different 
countries  and  in  the  different  regions  of  those 
countries  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  the 
horse  stands  alone  as  man's  direct  assistant,  one 
might  say  ally  ;  and,  in  addition,  the  horse  is  the 
one  animal  with  a  history  traceable  through  the 
early  centuries,  owing  to  the  almost  unbroken  line 
of  references  made  to  it  in  the  story  of  the  human 
race  and  progress  towards  civilisation. 

How  far  advanced  the  world  would  have  been 
at  the  time  of  the  Conqueror's  landing,  how  far 
advanced  it  would  be  to-day,  had  the  horse  not 
played  so  prominent  a  part  in  its  development, 
none  can  say.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however, 
but  that  the  human  race  would  have  advanced  far 
more  slowly  had  the  employment  of  horses  been 
withheld. 

Of  mythical  horses  that  have  "  existed,"  the 
name  is  legion.  To  deal  at  length  with  these 
strange  creatures  would  need  a  volume  half  as 
large  as  this  is.  I  have  mentioned  that  few  save 


98  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

scholars  to-day  take  interest  in  mythology,  so  I 
shall  refer  only  to  some  half-a-dozen  of  the  many 
horses  of  fable  and  of  mythology  whose  names  are 
household  words. 

Pegasus,  the  winged  horse  of  Apollo  and  the 
Muses,  is  perhaps  the  best  known  by  repute. 
The  name  of  course  is  Greek,  and  means,  more 
or  less,  "  one  born  near  the  ocean,"  and  according 
to  the  famous  fable  Perseus  rode  Pegasus  when 
rescuing  Andromeda. 

Frequently  in  history  we  find  a  ship  alluded  to 
as  "  Perseus'  flying  horse."  Thus  in  the  story  of 
the  destruction  of  Troy,  "  Perseus  conquered  the 
head  of  Medusa,  and  did  make  Pegase,  the  most 
swift  ship,  which  he  always  calls  Perseus'  flying 
horse,"  while  Shakespeare  in  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida  speaks  of  "  The  strong-ribbed  bark  through 
liquid  mountains  cut  .  .  .  like  Perseus'  horse." 

How  Perseus  beheaded  Medusa,  chief  of  the 
Gorgons,  and  how  everyone  who  afterwards 
looked  at  the  head  with  its  hair  turned  into  snakes 
by  the  jealous  goddess  Minerva  was  then  and 
there  transformed  into  stone  is  too  well  known 
to  need  repetition  at  length  here. 

Selene,  the  moon  goddess,  usually  represented 
in  a  chariot  drawn  by  fiery  white  horses — to 
some  extent  this  is  inconsistent,  seeing  that  from 
time  almost  immemorial  white  horses  have  notori- 
ously been  the  least  fiery  of  any — must  be  men- 
tioned, for  the  famous  cast  or  model  of  Selene's 


SOME   HORSES    OF   MYTHOLOGY      99 

horse  shown  in  the  British  Museum  indicates 
clearly  the  stamp  of  animal  that  was  most  highly 
prized  about  that  period.  According  to  Greek 
mythology,  Selene  was  in  love  with  the  setting 
sun,  Endymion,  and  bore  him  fifty  daughters  in 
addition  to  those  she  bore  the  god  Zeus. 

Achilles'  remarkable  steed,  Xanthos,  was,  we 
are  told,  "  human  to  all  intents."  When  "  severely 
spoken  to  "  by  its  master  because  on  the  battle- 
field it  had  deserted  Patroclos,  the  horse  first 
"looked  about  him  sadly,"  and  then,  according  to 
the  "  Iliad,"  it  told  Achilles  with  a  reproachful 
expression  in  its  eyes  that  he  too  would  soon  be 
dead,  for  that  this  was  "the  inexorable  decree  of 
of  destiny  " — a  prophecy  that  came  true. 

Achilles  owned  also  the  wonderful  horse,  Balios, 
which  first  of  all  Neptune  had  given  to  Peleus. 
The  sire  of  Balios,  like  the  sire  of  Xanthos,  was 
the  West  Wind,  its  dam  the  harpy,  Swift  Foot. 

According  to  Virgil  the  famous  horse  of  Greek 
mythology,  Cyllaros,  belonged  to  Pollux,  and  was 
named  after  Cylla,  in  Troas.  Ovid,  however 
affirms  that  it  belonged  to  Castor,  for  in  his 
"Metamorphose"  he  says,  when  speaking  of 
Cyllaros,  that  "He,  O  Castor,  was  a  courser 
worthy  thee  .  .  .  coal-black  his  colour,  but  like 
jet  it  shone :  His  legs  and  flowing  tail  were  white 
alone."  Then,  Adrastos  was  saved  at  the  siege 
of  Thebes  by  a  horse  famous  for  its  speed  and 
given  to  him  by  Hercules.  Its  name  was  Arion, 


ioo  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

and  Neptune  was  said  to  have  caused  it  to  rise 
out  of  the  earth,  using  his  trident  as  a  magic 
wand.  The  name  is  Greek  for  "martial,"  hence 
the  signification,  "war  horse,"  given  to  it  in  this 
instance.  We  read  that  "  its  right  feet  were  those 
of  a  human  creature,"  "it  spoke  with  a  human 
voice,"  and  "ran  with  incredible  swiftness." 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  notorious  horses  of 
Persian  mythology  is  Reksh,  a  steed  that  be- 
longed to  Rustam,  the  Persian  Hercules,  son  of 
Zal,  and  Prince  of  Sedjistan.  Rustam  became 
famous  chiefly  on  account  of  his  great  battle  with 
the  white  dragon,  Asdeev.  The  description  of 
Rustam's  deadly  encounter  with  his  son,  Sohrab 
— it  ended  in  the  latter's  death — is  described  in 
Matthew  Arnold's  poem,  "Sohrab  and  Rustam" 
in  very  fine  language. 


But  even  these  few  references  to  horses  of 
mythology  may  be  pronounced  dull  reading  in 
this  prosaic  age,  so  for  the  present  I  will  leave 
the  subject  and  come  down  to  earth  once  more. 
It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  the  Arab  race, 
apparently  from  the  time  when  it  first  began  to 
breed  horses,  was  wont  to  trace  the  pedigrees  of 
its  horses  through  the  dams  and  not  through  the 
sires,  in  the  same  way  that  in  ancient  days  this 
people  traced  its  own  lineage.  The  reason  the 


PEDIGREES  TRACED  THROUGH  DAMS    101 

Arabs  did  so  remains  to  this  day  'a  oroot  -point, 
though  it  would  seem  almost  certain  that  in  common 
with  the  Veneti  they  believed  the  selection  of  the 
dam  to  be  of  more  vital  importance  than  the  selec- 
tion of  the  stallion  in  order  to  secure  good  stock. 

Indeed  even  now  there  are  races  who  hold  this 
view,  and  to  confirm  their  opinion  they  quote 
Aristotle,  who  also  maintained  that  pedigrees 
ought  by  rights  to  be  traced  through  the  female 
line.  Nor  are  they  at  all  peculiar,  for  some  of 
the  foremost  among  modern  breeders  of  horses 
hold  that  in  almost  every  case  the  qualities  of  the 
dam  descend  more  directly  than  do  those  of  the  sire. 

We  have  now  come  to  what  may  be  termed 
the  second  period  of  the  horse  in  history — the 
period  that  begins  with  William  the  Conqueror's 
reign  and  ends  with  the  Stuart  Period.  From 
very  early  centuries  down  to  the  coming  of  Christ, 
and  from  the  coming  of  Christ  down  to  the 
Norman  invasion,  all  the  records  bearing  directly 
upon  the  horse  in  its  relation  to  the  world's  pro- 
gress are  necessarily  open  to  criticism,  for  almost 
all  historical  records  of  that  period  have  to  be 
accepted  with  some  reserve. 

It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  no  two  historians 
prior  to  the  Conquest  can  be  found  who  agree  in 
detail  one  with  the  other,  while  some  there  are 
whose  statements  are  almostdiametricallyopposed. 
In  compiling  these  pages,  therefore,  I  have  tried 
to  use  discretion. 


102  THE   HORSE    IN   HISTORY 


Apparently  an  impression  is  prevalent  amongst 
historians  that  the  horses  of  the  centuries  before 
the  Conquest,  and  therefore  presumably  also  the 
horses  of  the  period  that  preceded  the  birth  of 
Christ,  lived  longer  than  those  of  later  times. 

What  can  have  given  rise  to  this  idea  it  is  hard 
to  say,  and  that  the  belief  most  likely  is  fallacious 
we  are  led  to  infer  from  the  statements  of  those 
early  writers  who  state  definitely  the  ages  at  which 
their  favourite  chargers  died. 

Yet  at  least  two  of  our  modern  historians  assert 
that  the  horses  of  the  early  Greeks  and  Romans 
lived  to  the  age  of  thirty-five  or  more,  upon  an 
average. 

That  such  misstatement  should  continue  to  be 
handed  down  is  very  regrettable  ;  while  equally 
to  be  deprecated  is  the  habit  common  more 
especially  among  the  younger  school  of  French 
historians  of  applying  the  principles  of  the 
higher  criticism  in  cases  where  such  criticism 
ipso  facto  cannot  hold  good,  the  result  being  that 
conclusions  are  arrived  at  which  in  many  instances 
are  wholly  false. 

To  take  a  single  case  in  point — rather  a  well- 
known  Continental  antiquary  mentions  in  his 
historical  essays  that  during  the  period  approxim- 
ately between  the  coming  of  Christ  and  the  reign 


INFLUENCE   UPON   HISTORY        103 

of  William  the  Conqueror  horses  practically  the 
world  over  "  went  out  of  use  more  and  more." 

By  "the  world  over"  he  means,  of  course,  as 
much  of  the  world  as  was  known  in  those  days, 
but  the  statement  is  none  the  less  incorrect,  and 
it  seems  clear  that  he  must  have  come  to  this 
false  conclusion  through  inferring  that  because 
in  certain  regions  the  designs  upon  the  ancient 
monuments,  and  in  some  instances  the  figures 
upon  the  coinage,  represent  a  horse,  or  horses 
and  chariots,  the  monuments  and  coins  of  a  later 
date  show  only  an  unmounted  warrior. 

The  true  reason  of  this,  however,  probably  is 
that  the  later  monuments  were  erected,  and  the 
later  coins  struck,  at  a  period  when  neither  famous 
battles  were  being  fought  nor  great  contests  of 
skill  decided.  Students  of  history  well  know, 
indeed,  that  the  monarchs  as  well  as  the  great 
chiefs  and  leaders  in  the  early  centuries  before 
the  Conquest,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  centuries 
after  it,  almost  invariably  commemorated  upon 
their  monuments,  coins  and  parchments  such 
events  as  happened  to  be  of  importance  at  the 
moment,  or,  as  we  should  say  to-day,  of  passing 
interest  only. 

Indeed,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show,  one  of 
the  most  noticeable  features  about  the  horse  in 
its  relation  to  history  is  the  manner  in  which 
it  gradually  influenced  the  development  of  the 
various  nations.  The  early  Libyan  horses  were 


104  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

famous  for  what  must  be  described  as  their  gentle- 
ness and  their  intelligence,  characteristics  which 
apparently  marked  some  of  the  Libyan  races. 

The  horses  of  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
vicious  in  various  ways,  and  less  tractable,  but 
also  they  were  less  timid  than  the  Libyan  horses. 

It  is  curious  to  read,  then,  that  the  European 
races  that  owned  these  horses  had  several  char- 
acteristics in  common.  In  addition  it  is  well 
known  that  in  the  metie  of  a  battle  the  horses  of 
the  contending  armies  quite  commonly  bit  savagely 
one  at  another,  and  some  of  the  early  writers 
whose  utterances  can  be  relied  upon  maintain 
that  even  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  such  horses 
but  rarely  bit  or  savaged  horses  other  than  the 
enemy's,  and  the  enemy  themselves. 

Another  point  worth  noting  is  that  though 
often  in  the  early  ages  horses  were  immolated, 
yet  deliberate  cruelty  to  a  horse  upon  other 
occasions  was  almost  universally  condemned  by 
law.  No  precautions,  however,  were  taken  for  the 
prevention  of  cruelty  to  any  other  sort  of  animal. 

This  is,  in  itself,  significant,  for  it  can  hardly 
be  supposed  that  unnecessary  cruelty  to  horses  was 
condemned  from  the  standpoint  of  the  humani- 
tarian. Probably  it  was  the  horse's  usefulness 
to  mankind  that  served  to  guard  him  against 
ill-usage,  and,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  it  was 
this  same  usefulness  that  protected  him  from  ill- 
treatment  in  centuries  long  after  the  Conquest. 


COURAGE  OF  CAESAR'S  HORSES  105 
Indeed  there  are  parts  of  the  world  where  to 
this  day  horses  are  well  treated  because  to  ill- 
use  them  is  deemed  unwise  policy.  Thus  in  no 
part  of  the  Western  States  of  America  have  I 
ever  seen  a  horse  flogged  unmercifully,  and  upon 
several  occasions  when  attention  has  been  drawn 
to  this  the  reply  has  been  practically  the  same  : 
"  If  we  served  them  badly  we  should  get  less 
work  out  of  them,"  an  observation  that  some 
Englishmen,  plenty  of  Frenchmen,  and  very 
many  Italians,  who  have  to  do  with  horses, 
might  with  advantage  bear  in  mind. 


The  physical  strength  of  horses  in  the  very 
early  centuries  must  have  been  prodigious.  If 
the  details  we  have  of  the  way  in  which  the  early 
war  chariots  were  constructed  are  accurate,  then 
at  least  three  of  our  twentieth-century  horses 
would  be  needed  to  accomplish  the  work,  one 
might  almost  say  perform  the  feats,  that  a  pair  of 
horses  could  do  twelve  or  thirteen  centuries  ago. 

Even  as  late  in  the  world's  history  as  the  period 
of  Julius  Caesar  the  staying  power  of  some  of  the 
war  horses  in  Britain  was  amazing.  Men  who 
have  been  in  action  in  our  own  times  will  tell 
you  that  a  wounded  horse  gives  in  at  once, 
that  he  seems  to  have  no  heart.  Yet  in  Julius 
Caesar's  time,  and  in  earlier  epochs,  an  arrow 


io6  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

or  a  javelin  wound,  if  not  too  severe,  apparently 
had  the  effect  of  setting  a  war  horse  upon  his 
mettle  rather  than  of  causing  him  to  give  in. 

Can  the  horse's  temperament,  then,  have 
changed  within  the  last  ten  centuries?  Is  he  a 
less  courageous  animal  than  he  was  ?  Is  he  more 
highly  strung,  less  intelligent,  less  strong  physic- 
ally, and  of  a  weaker  constitution?  Such  prob- 
lems have  to  do  with  the  history  of  the  horse 
rather  than  with  the  horse  in  history,  and,  so  far 
as  I  am  aware,  they  have  not  as  yet  been  solved. 


PART  II 

FROM    THE    CONQUEST    TO    THE   STUART 
PERIOD 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Conqueror's  cavalry — Horse  fairs  and  races  at  Smithfield — 
King  John's  foolish  fad — The  Persians  and  their  horses — Relics  of 
Irish  art ;  what  they  indicate — Simon  de  Montfort  the  first  master 
of  foxhounds — The  king's  right  to  commandeer  horses — Sir 
Eustace  de  Hecche ;  Battle  of  Falkirk — Marco  Polo  and  white 
horses ;  curious  superstitions — Edward  III.  and  Richard  II. 
encourage  horse  breeding — Battle  of  Crecy 

HF*  HE  beginning  of  William  the  Conqueror's 
•*•  reign  marks  a  turning-point  in  the  story  of 
the  horse's  influence  upon  the  British  nation,  also, 
incidentally,  in  the  general  development  of  the 
horse. 

Roger  de  Bellesne,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  who 
is  said  to  have  been  an  accomplished  horseman 
— as  fine  horsemanship  was  understood  in  those 
days — obtained  leave  of  the  king  to  import 
from  Spain  a  number  of  stallions  of  great 
value. 

These  stallions,  indeed,  were  said  at  the  time 
to  be  "  the  best  procurable  in  Spain,"  and  we  are 
told  that  when  King  William  beheld  them  he 
107 


io8  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

displayed  great  delight,  at  the  same  time  "  ex- 
pressing his  approval  in  a  very  forcible  way." 

The  king  himself  apparently  was  not  a  finished 
horseman  ;  yet  he  had  a  strong  liking  for  horses, 
possibly  in  the  same  way  that  "  he  loved  the 
great  deer  of  the  forests  as  though  he  had  been 
their  father  "  (!)  Most  likely  he  was  too  heavily 
built  a  man  to  make  a  graceful  rider,  though 
it  is  said  that  upon  the  arrival  of  Lord  Shrews- 
bury's stallions  he  went  on  horseback  to  inspect 
them,  and,  as  we  know,  towards  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  or  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  poet  Drayton  praised  very  highly 
the  progeny  of  these  same  horses. 

Naturally  this  importation  of  valuable  stallions 
greatly  improved  the  breed  of  horses  in  Britain, 
and  from  the  time  of  the  Conquest  onward  the 
improvement  was  distinctly  noticeable. 


Though  some  historians  tell  us  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  rode  on  horseback,  others  maintain  that 
they  did  not  ride.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  they  did  not  fight  on  horseback.  The 
well-known  scene  on  Bayeux  tapestry  that  repre- 
sents the  battle  of  Hastings  shows  us  Harold  fight- 
ing on  foot  when  the  arrow  strikes  him  in  the  eye. 

A  comparatively  modern  historian  has  tried  to 
disprove  the  popular  story  of  the  Normans  shoot- 


THE   CONQUEROR'S   CAVALRY      109 

ing  their  shafts  high  into  the  air  so  that  in  their 
descent  these  shafts  might  pierce  the  heads  of  the 
enemy,  but  the  old  narrative  is  still  believed  by 
the  great  body  of  modern  students. 

King  William's  warriors  were,  of  course,  almost 
all  mounted — of  that  there  cannot  be  a  doubt. 
Had  they  not  been  the  Saxons  would  most  likely 
have  won  the  day,  even  though  the  enemy  was 
clad  in  mail.  Also  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  cavalry  brought  over  by  King  William  was 
practically  of  the  stamp  that  some  three  centuries 
earlier  had  resisted  very  firmly  the  Moslem  attack 
at  Poictiers.  The  chargers  were  of  the  same 
stock,  and  therefore  it  may  with  truth  be  said  that 
the  famous  Norman  Conquest  and  the  great  and 
important  events  that  followed  it  in  the  history 
of  this  country  were  directly  due  to  the  simple 
fact  that  the  Normans  possessed  war  horses  and 
knew  thoroughly  how  to  manage  them. 

Of  precisely  what  stamp  the  Normans'  chargers 
were  that  were  imported  at  this  time  cannot  be 
said  for  certain.  Without  doubt,  however,  they 
were  tall  and  heavily  built  animals,  for  the  armed 
men  they  had  to  carry  were  all  of  very  great 
weight. 

For  ten,  or  possibly  twelve  centuries  a  breed 
of  great  horses  had  been  multiplying  largely  in 
the  northern  and  western  regions  of  Europe,  so 
the  inference  is  that  the  cavalry  of  the  Normans 
must  have  been  of  that  breed. 


no  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Also  the  saddles  they  are  represented  as  wear- 
ing were  extremely  massive  and  presumably  of 
great  weight.  Those  shown  on  the  Bayeux 
tapestry  have  a  deep  curve  which  must  have 
made  them  difficult  to  fall  out  of,  and  we  are  told 
by  Giraldus  that  saddles  almost  exactly  similar, 
and  provided  with  stirrups,  were  in  use  in  Ireland 
a  century  or  so  later.  The  riders  at  that  time 
wore  high  boots,  prick  spurs,  and  hauberk. 


A  monk  of  Canterbury,  William  Stephanides, 
writing  early  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  alludes 
to  various  kinds  of  horses  used  in  Great  Britain, 
and  among  these  there  undoubtedly  were  some 
of  the  stamp  that  the  Normans  imported. 

"Without  one  of  the  London  city  gates,"  he 
tells  us,  "  is  a  certain  smooth  field" — no  doubt 
the  site  known  to-day  as  Smithfield — "and  every 
Friday  there  is  a  brave  sight  of  gallant  horses  to 
be  sold.  Many  come  from  the  city  to  buy  or 
look  on  —  to  wit,  earls,  barons,  knights  and 
citizens.  There  are  to  be  found  here  managed 
or  war  horses  (dextrarii),  of  elegant  shape,  full 
of  fire  and  giving  every  proof  of  a  generous  and 
noble  temper ;  likewise  cart  horses,  horses  fitted 
for  the  dray,  or  the  plough,  or  the  chariot." 

From  other  sources  we  are  able  to  gather  that 
at  this  time  there  must  have  been  many  war 


KING   JOHN'S    FOOLISH   FAD        in 

horses  in  England,  and  that  they  were  for  the 
most  part  animals  of  great  size  and  strength. 
Consequently  the  cavalry  of  the  period  were 
extremely  unwieldy.  On  the  other  hand  we 
know  that  the  rest  of  the  horses  distributed 
throughout  the  country  were  but  little  bigger 
than  cobs,  and  we  read  that  though  attempts 
were  made  to  mount  men-at-arms  on  some  of 
them  all  such  attempts  had  soon  to  be  abandoned, 
the  horses  being  "  oppressed  by  the  weight  of  the 
armour  and  the  heavy  accoutrements." 

Probably  this  was  the  reason  such  strenuous 
efforts  were  presently  made  by  the  various  reign- 
ing monarchs,  and  by  the  parliaments  that  were 
in  power  between  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  and  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  to  breed  bigger  and  heavier 
horses,  "great  horses  "  as  they  came  to  be  called, 
and  are  often  termed  still. 

Some  of  the  Latin  records  of  the  Mediaeval  age 
contain  interesting  allusions  to  these  great  horses, 
dextrarii  and  magni  equi  they  were  called.  The 
horses  of  this  stamp  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
very  intelligent  animals,  but  their  physical  strength 
was  colossal,  and  in  selecting  them  particular 
attention  was  paid  to  their  power  of  endurance, 
or,  as  we  call  it  to-day,  their  staying  power. 

Apparently  Henry  II.  and  Richard  I.  were 
partial  to  chestnut  and  dark  brown  stallions,  but 
King  John,  and  later  Queen  Elizabeth,  preferred 
black.  Indeed  we  are  told  that  in  the  beginning 


ii2  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

of  his  reign  King  John  vowed  he  would  have  his 
courtiers  ride  none  but  black  horses,  and  that  the 
sums  he  had  to  pay  to  enable  him  to  gratify  so 
foolish  a  fad — it  may  have  been  mere  vanity 
— were  quoted  among  the  acts  of  extravagance 
that  later  incensed  his  barons  and  led  ultimately 
to  their  making  him  sign  Magna  Charta. 

As  the  size  and  strength  of  the  war  horses 
grew  greater  in  all  countries,  so  did  the  weight 
and  strength  of  the  armour  steadily  increase. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  the 
Norman  hauberk  that  for  many  years  had  proved 
effective,  and  that  even  the  most  far-seeing  of 
the  warriors  firmly  believed  could  not  be  im- 
proved upon,  began  to  make  way  for  the  heavy 
chain  mail — the  most  picturesque  armour  ever 
adopted  by  any  nation — which,  when  first  intro- 
duced, was  said  to  render  the  warrior  almost 
invulnerable. 

But  as  time  went  on,  and  the  strength  of  both 
men  and  horses  further  increased,  and  the  weapons 
of  war  became  more  deadly  still,  the  armour 
again  underwent  a  change,  so  that  about  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  we  find  the 
"perfect  armour,"  as  it  had  come  to  be  called, 
being  in  its  turn  discarded  in  favour  of  the 
hideous  plate  armour  that  less  than  a  hundred 
years  afterwards  was  adopted  by  practically  every 
"civilised"  nation  in  Europe. 

A  monk  of  Canterbury,  by  name  FitzStephen, 


HORSE   RACING   AT   SMITHFIELD    113 

who  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  was  secretary  to 
the  famous  Archbishop  a  Becket,  refers  in- 
cidentally to  some  rather  primitive  horse  races 
which  took  place  at  Smithfield  towards  the  end 
of  the  twelfth  century,  and  in  doing  so  he  quaintly 
tells  us  that  "the  jockeys,  inspired  with  thoughts 
of  applause,  and  in  the  hope  of  victory,  clap  spurs 
to  the  willing  horses,  brandish  their  whips,  and 
cheer  them  with  their  cries  !  " 

Reference  is  made  to  these  races  in  several 
other  of  the  early  documents,  and  though  they 
are  among  the  first  horse  races  of  which  descrip- 
tions have  been  handed  down  to  us,  it  seems 
clear  that  they  attracted  a  great  concourse  of 
spectators  and  gave  rise  to  much  reckless  wager- 
ing. That  the  animals  entered  were  all  practically 
untrained  is  made  apparent. 

King  Richard  I.  is  said  to  have  been  a  good 
judge  of  a  horse  and  to  have  owned  a  number 
of  swift-running  steeds.  Upon  one  or  two  occa- 
sions he  endeavoured  to  establish  horse  racing 
as  a  national  pastime,  but  the  country  was  not 
yet  ripe  for  it,  and  his  attempts  met  with  but  scant 
encouragement. 

It  is  said  that  his  courtiers  strove  to  serve  their 
royal  master  by  having  recourse  to  threats  in 
those  districts  where  the  introduction  of  horse 
racing  was  opposed,  but  all  to  no  purpose. 

King  John,  upon  ascending  the  throne,  devoted 
much  time  to  hunting  and  similar  sports,  and 


ii4  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

valued  good  horses  so  greatly  that  in  some  in- 
stances he  insisted  that  the  fines  he  was  so  fond 
of  extorting  should  be  paid  in  horses  instead  of  in 
money. 

Then,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  William  the 
Conqueror,  he  imported  a  number  of  stallions, 
among  them  many  of  the  Eastern  breed,  and  on 
the  pastures  in  Kent  where  the  town  of  Eltham 
and  the  village  of  Mottingham  now  stand  he 
established  the  famous  stud  from  which  so  many 
of  the  horses  owned  in  after  years  by  Queen 
Elizabeth  were  directly  descended. 

Worthy  of  mention  here  is  the  coincidence  that 
the  early  days  of  some  of  the  most  celebrated 
thoroughbreds  of  recent  times  were  spent  in  the 
very  paddocks  where  King  John's  foals  and  im- 
ported horses  were  disporting  themselves  some 
seven  centuries  earlier. 

On  the  subject  of  the  great  horses  of  the  Middle 
Ages  it  is  interesting  to  read  that  while  British 
rulers  were  striving  to  breed  animals  which  would 
be  both  bigger  and  stronger  than  their  pre- 
decessors, the  Persians  in  their  country  were 
endeavouring  to  breed  and  rear  horses  on  lines 
precisely  similar,  and  with  the  same  objects  in 
view. 

How  successful  the  attempts  of  the  latter 
proved  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that,  in  the 
centuries  that  followed,  the  Persian  horses  became 
renowned  the  world  over  for  their  immense 


RELICS   OF  IRISH   ART  115 

strength,   though  the  animals  of  this  particular 
breed  never  became  famous  for  their  speed. 

Indeed  the  chief  victories  won  by  the  Persians 
in  their  terrific  encounters  with  the  Turks  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  were  due  in  a 
great  measure  to  the  superior  size  and  strength 
of  the  Persian  war  horses,  though,  of  course,  the 
fact  that  the  Turks  had  only  their  shields  with 
which  to  protect  themselves  must  have  helped 
the  Persians  materially. 

Perhaps  some  of  the  most  interesting  and 
accurate  representations  of  the  horses  of  about 
this  period  are  those  to  be  found  in  parts  of 
Ireland  among  the  remains  of  Irish  art.  These 
remains,  rather  let  us  call  them  relics,  are  almost 
matchless,  and  they  represent  horses  driven  in 
chariots,  and  some  mounted  by  riders. 

Thus  three  horsemen  in  addition  to  two 
chariots  with  horses  harnessed  are  to  be  seen  on 
the  two  panels  of  the  plinth  of  the  historic  North 
Cross  at  Clonmacnoise  in  King's  County.  The 
wheels  of  these  chariots  have  eight  spokes,  and 
the  relic  is  believed  by  the  foremost  of  our 
antiquaries  to  date  back  to  the  tenth  century. 

A  panel  almost  similar,  dating  back  approxi- 
mately to  the  same  period,  is  to  be  seen  on  an 
upright  cross  in  a  street  in  the  town  of  Kells, 
in  County  Meath,  and  on  this  cross  not  only  are 
horsemen  shown,  but  in  addition  a  hunting  scene 
is  clearly  depicted. 


n6  THE  HORSE  IN  HISTORY 

Relics  such  as  these  help  to  demonstrate  that 
the  interest  taken  in  horses  by  the  people  of 
Great  Britain,  just  before  and  just  after  the  Con- 
quest, was  shared  by  the  natives  of  Ireland, 
though  not  until  several  centuries  had  elapsed  did 
the  Irish  show  signs  of  becoming  the  thoroughly 
horse-loving  nation  that  they  are  to-day. 

It  is  true  that  from  a  very  early  period  they 
were  fond  of  most  kinds  of  outdoor  pursuits  that 
need  daring  in  addition  to  the  exercise  of  skill 
upon  the  part  of  those  anxious  to  become  pro- 
ficient at  them.  Also  it  is  true  that  the  horse  has 
from  first  to  last  had  much  to  do  with  the  mould- 
ing of  the  Irish  character. 

The  horse's  immediate  bearing  upon  the  his- 
tory and  progress  of  Ireland  begins,  however, 
at  a  later  date,  and  in  the  same  manner  the 
importation  of  great  horses,  and  the  establishment 
of  what  must  have  been  the  precursors  of  our 
modern  stud  farms,  occur  later  in  Ireland's  his- 
tory than  in  England's. 


With  the  accession  of  Henry  III.  we  find  upon 
the  throne  a  king  keenly  interested  in  all  that  had 
to  do  with  horses,  and  devoted  to  the  chase  as 
well  as  to  "stirring  contests  between  competing 
horses."  For  authentic  particulars  of  the  contests 
in  which  these  " competing  horses"  took  part  we 


NEWMARKET  117 

may  search  the  ancient  records  almost  in  vain. 
Apparently  the  few  race  meetings  organised  were, 
to  say  the  best  we  can  of  them,  not  of  great  im- 
portance, not  excepting  those  in  which  the  king 
and  his  nobles  were  directly  interested.  To  afford 
opportunities  for  wagering  was,  so  far  as  one  can 
gather,  their  principal  raison  dfore,  and  such  rules 
of  racing  as  did  exist  most  likely  were  almost 
wholly  disregarded. 

In  this  respect  the  king  would  seem  not  to 
have  been  much  more  particular  than  his  sub- 
jects, though,  as  already  said,  information  obtain- 
able upon  the  subject  is  of  the  scantiest,  and  is 
at  best  unreliable. 


In  the  history  of  Henry  III.'s  reign  there 
occurs  what  we  may  take  to  be  the  first  direct 
reference  to  "a  village  named  Newmarket,"  in 
Cambridgeshire.  As  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  the  tribe  that  dwelt  on  Newmarket  Heath  in 
very  early  times  and  was  known  as  the  Iceni 
apparently  was  interested  in  horses  and  to  some 
extent  bred  horses,  so  it  is  not  astonishing  to 
learn  that  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  people 
then  living  in  Newmarket  and  the  neighbourhood 
still  carried  on  the  traditions  of  the  Iceni,  even  to 
boasting  openly  that  steeds  bred  upon  the  Heath 
could  not  be  rivalled  for  speed  "  the  world  over." 


n8  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

This,  most  likely,  was  an  empty  boast,  for  what 
could  a  small  community,  that  presumably  travelled 
but  rarely,  know  at  first  hand  of  horses  bred  even 
in  far  distant  parts  of  England? 

It  is  true  that  Simon  de  Montfort  had  a  high 
opinion  of  the  horses  bred  at  Newmarket,  for  he 
tells  us  so  in  a  letter  written  a  few  years  before 
his  death — he  was  killed  at  Evesham  in  1265. 
Presumably  he  rode  in  the  hunting  field  some 
of  his  horses  that  had  been  reared  at  New- 
market, for  he  was  as  keen  about  hunting  as 
about  soldiering. 

Historians  have  described  him  as  "the  great 
patriotic  baron  of  his  period,"  a  description  that  is 
accurate  if  we  are  to  judge  from  his  acts.  I  believe 
I  am  right  in  saying  that  Simon  de  Montfort  was  the 
first  master  of  foxhounds  of  whom  mention  is  made 
in  British  history,  but  upon  this  point  I  am  open 
to  correction.  Certainly  he  is  the  first  of  whose 
life  we  have  authentic  details.  On  his  great  seal 
attached  to  a  deed  dated  1259,  and  now  in  Paris 
among  the  royal  archives,  he  is  shown  galloping 
beside  his  hounds,  urging  them  on,  and  blowing 
his  horn.  He  is  said  to  have  hunted  largely  in 
Leicestershire  and  Warwickshire,  and  as  he  lived 
in  the  thirteenth  century  the  seal  referred  to  forms 
most  likely  the  first  picture  we  have  of  a  bond  fide 
run  with  foxhounds. 

In  Blount's  "  Ancient  Tenures,"  a  volume  that 
is  extremely  interesting  and  in  some  respects 


KING'S   RIGHT  TO   COMMANDEER  119 

amusing,  we  are  told  that  "  In  the  reign  of  King 
Edward  I.  Walter  Marescullus  paid  at  the  crucem 
lapideam  six  horseshoes  with  nails  for  a  certain 
building  which  he  held  of  the  king  in  capite 
opposite  the  stone  cross." 

This  recalls  to  mind  that  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
III.,  and  even  later,  horseshoes  and  horseshoe 
nails  were  frequently  taken  in  lieu  of  rent. 
Whether  or  no  horseshoes  were  of  exceptional 
value  does  not  appear,  but  we  are  led  to  suppose 
that  they  must  have  been  from  the  fact  that  in 
1251  a  farrier  named  Walter  le  Brun,  who  lived 
in  the  Strand,  in  London,  was  granted  a  plot  of 
land  in  the  parish  of  St  Clements  "to  place  there 
a  forge,  six  horseshoes  to  be  paid  to  the  parish 
every  year  for  the  privilege." 

In  after  years  the  same  plot  was  granted  to 
the  Mayor  and  citizens  of  London,  who,  it  is  said, 
still  render  six  horseshoes  to  the  Exchequer 
annually. 

According  to  the  Statutes,  25,  Edward  I.,  c. 
21  ;  and  36,  Edward  III.  cc.  4,  5,  the  king  could 
commandeer  from  his  subjects  as  many  horses  as 
he  might  need  for  his  own  service.  By  the  nobles 
and  barons  this  was  deemed  a  harsh  measure,  and 
frequently  they  rebelled  against  it.  Some  of  the 
more  spirited  even  refused  to  acknowledge  its 
validity,  with  the  result  that  a  number  were  slain 
whilst  attempting  to  retain  their  horses  by  force  ; 
others  were  imprisoned ;  and  a  few  were  put  to 


i2o  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

death  as  rebels.  Indeed  at  this  period  the  theft 
of  a  horse  ranked  second  only  to  murder,  and  was 
punished  as  severely. 


A  horse  upon  whose  history  several  more  or 
less  romantic  stories  and  poems  have  been  based 
was  the  bay  charger  owned  by  King  Edward  I. 
that  Sir  Eustace  de  Hecche  rode  in  the  battle  of 
Falkirk  in  1298.  It  had  a  white  stocking  on  its 
near  hind  leg,  and  according  to  one  story  its  sire 
and  grandsire  had  each  a  white  stocking  almost 
exactly  similar. 

Some  say  that  this  charger — it  had  several 
names,  apparently — was  killed  in  the  battle,  for 
it  is  known  beyond  dispute  that  many  of  the 
chargers  owned  by  knights,  barons,  valets  and 
esquires  were  slain  in  that  great  conflict. 

Other  reports,  however,  have  it  that  Sir 
Eustace's  mount  came  through  the  fight  without 
a  scratch.  Sir  Eustace  was  singularly  attached 
to  this  particular  horse  and  is  said  to  have 
refused  offers  of  large  sums  if  he  would  sell 
it.  He  is  also  accredited  with  the  remark  that 
in  courage  and  intelligence  his  bay  charger 
eclipsed  all  other  war  horses  he  had  ever 
owned. 

Much  of  interest  to  do  with  horses  has 
been  narrated  by  a  distinguished  writer  who 


MARCO   POLO   AND   WHITE   HORSES     121 

flourished  towards  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
and  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  centuries 
— namely,  Marco  Polo.  His  remarks  about  the 
superstitions  that  were  prevalent  in  his  time  are 
exceptionally  instructive. 

Writing  of  the  city  of  Chandu  which  was  founded 
by  Kublai  and  that  gave  the  name  to  the  river 
known  now  as  Shangtu,  Polo  tells  us  to  re- 
member that  the  Kaan  owned  an  immense  stud 
of  white  horses  and  mares,  some  10,000  in  all, 
4 'and  not  one  with  a  speck  or  blemish  visible." 
The  milk  of  these  mares  was  reserved  for  the 
Kaan  and  his  family,  "and  they  drank  a  great 
deal  of  it,"  the  rest  being  given  to  some  of  the 
more  distant  relatives  of  the  tribe. 

Upon  occasions,  however,  a  tribe  named 
Horiad  was  allowed  to  drink  of  the  milk  of 
the  mares,  "the  privilege  being  granted  them," 
as  Polo  says,  "by  Chinghas  Kaan  on  account  of 
a  certain  victory  they  long  ago  helped  him  to  win." 

Elsewhere  Polo  describes  what  may  be  termed 
the  etiquette  it  was  essential  the  traveller  should 
observe  who  chanced  to  come  upon  the  herd  of 
white  mares  when  they  were  travelling. 

"  Be  he  the  greatest  lord  in  the  land,"  he  tells 
us,  "he  must  not  presume  to  pass  until  the  mares 
have  gone  by,  but  must  either  tarry  where  he  is, 
or  go  half-a-day's  journey  round,  if  need  so  be, 
so  as  not  to  come  nigh  them,  for  they  are  to  be 
treated  with  the  greatest  respect." 


122  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Non-observance  of  this  unwritten  law  brought 
grief  in  its  train,  the  punishments  inflicted  being 
as  varied  as  they  were  horrible. 

Furthermore,  every  year,  on  the  28th  of 
August,  "the  lord  set  out  from  the  park,"  upon 
which  occasion  none  of  the  mares'  milk  was 
drunk.  Instead  it  was  collected  in  large-mouthed 
vessels  kept  expressly  for  the  purpose  and  the 
occasion,  and  after  that  it  was  "  sprinkled  over  a 
vast  stretch  of  ground  and  in  many  different 
directions." 

This  was  done  "on  the  injunction  of  the 
Idolaters  and  Idol-priests,"  who  steadfastly  main- 
tained that  if  the  milk  were  thus  sprinkled  once  a 
year  "the  Earth  and  the  Air  and  the  Gods  shall 
have  their  share  of  it,  and  the  Spirits  likewise  that 
inhabit  the  Air  and  the  Earth.  .  .  .  And  thus 
those  beings  will  protect  and  bless  the  Kaan  and 
his  children,  and  his  wives,  and  his  folk,  and  his 
gear,  and  his  cattle,  and  his  horses,  and  his  corn, 
and  all  that  is  his ;  and  after  this  done  the 
Emperor  is  off  and  away." 

It  is  strange,  also  significant,  that  in  almost 
every  age  allusion  has  been  made  to  the  respect 
habitually  paid  to  white  horses,  especially  pure 
white  horses.  From  Homer  we  know  that  in 
his  period,  or  towards  the  latter  part  of  the  eighth 
century  B.C.,  the  Thracians,  the  Illyrians  and  the 
people  of  Upper  Europe  spoke  of  white  horses  as 
though  they  almost  worshipped  them  as  gods. 


CURIOUS   SUPERSTITIONS  123 

In  those  early  times  it  was  deemed  criminal 
intentionally  to  wound  a  white  horse,  while  to 
kill  one  even  by  accident  was  thought  to  be  but 
little  less  blameworthy — save,  of  course,  upon 
occasions  when  a  white  horse  was  to  be  sacrificed 
to  please  the  gods  or  to  appease  their  anger. 

Some  centuries  later  Herodotus  virtually  re- 
peats what  Homer  has  already  told  us,  and  gives 
us  to  understand  in  addition  that  by  that  time 
parts  of  Russia  teemed  with  white  horses,  many 
of  them  of  great  value. 

Whether  towards  the  end  of  the  third  and 
the  beginning  of  the  second  centuries  B.C.  the 
Russians  treated  even  white  horses  with  ordinary 
humanity  would  appear  doubtful,  though  we 
know  that  Russians  entertained  superstitious  and 
grotesque  beliefs  concerning  horses  that  were 
either  white  or  cream-coloured. 

Finally,  some  seven  centuries  later,  Marco  Polo 
comes  with  his  remarkable  narratives  of  the 
Tartars'  herds  of  white  horses  and  their  strange 
beliefs  concerning  them.  From  other  sources 
particulars  may  be  obtained  of  the  barbarous 
practices  these  Tartars  had  recourse  to  upon 
the  occasions  of  their  sacrificial  ceremonies,  par- 
ticulars of  too  revolting  a  nature  to  be  given 
here. 


124  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

And  now  again  we  find  allusion  to  the  Turf. 
Apparently  Edward  II.  disliked  horse  racing — 
such  horse-racing  as  there  was  in  his  reign — and 
all  that  appertained  to  it,  for  upon  the  feast  of  St 
George  in  the  year  1309  we  find  him  interdicting 
"a  tournament  which  was  to  be  held  on  New- 
market Heath  "  ;  an  act  that  made  him  unpopular 
for  the  moment,  though  when  some  years  later  he 
deliberately  put  a  stop  to  preparations  in  progress 
in  connection  with  a  similar  tournament  nobody 
seemed  much  to  mind. 

That  the  people  of  England  were  none  the  less 
interested  in  horses  at  about  this  time  we  may 
infer  from  the  knowledge  we  have  that  John 
Gyfford  and  William  Twety  had  already  issued 
their  books  upon  horses  and  hunting,  books  to  be 
seen  to  this  day  among  the  manuscripts  in  the 
Cottonian  Collection,  and  that  were,  if  one  may 
express  it  so,  widely  read  when  first  written. 

Strictly  dissimilar  were  the  views  of  Edward 
III.  from  those  of  his  predecessors  where  the 
subject  of  horses  and  the  various  forms  of  sport 
in  which  the  horse  plays  a  prominent  part  were 
concerned.  The  steps  taken  by  Edward  II. 
deliberately  to  foster  general  dislike  of  certain 
branches  of  sport  had  not  achieved  the  desired 
effect  save  amongst  his  small  circle  of  sycophants, 
and  one  of  Edward  III.'s  first  acts  upon  succeed- 
ing him  was  to  gather  together  a  stud  of  the 
swiftest  running  horses  procurable. 


EDWARD   III.   AND   RICHARD   II.     125 

This  act  it  was  that  led  the  popular  King  of 
Navarre  to  select  "two  swift-running  horses  of 
great  beauty  "  from  his  stable  and  send  them  as 
a  present  to  Edward  III.  ;  a  compliment  which 
pleased  Edward  greatly  and  that  he  quickly 
acknowledged. 

In  this  reign,  also  in  the  reign  of  the  succeed- 
ing monarch,  Richard  II.,  Acts  were  passed 
which  directly  tended  to  encourage  the  breeding 
and  rearing  of  good  horses.  Indeed  the  sums 
spent  by  Edward  III.  in  connection  with  this 
must  have  been  prodigious,  for  it  is  on  record 
that  upon  one  occasion  he  purchased  from  the 
Count  of  Hainault  alone  horses  to  the  value  of 
some  25,000  florins. 

Many  of  the  horses  that  he  bought,  however, 
came  direct  from  the  Low  Countries.  Among 
the  royal  manors  where  he  established  large  studs, 
especially  studs  of  war  horses,  were  Woodstock, 
Waltham,  Odiham,  and  of  course  Windsor,  a 
proportion  of  the  expense  of  inaugurating  and 
supporting  these  stud  farms  being  defrayed  by 
the  sheriffs,  according  to  royal  command. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  the  supply  of  horses 
obtainable  was  not  equal  to  the  demand  when 
the  great  war  with  France  broke  out.  At 
the  battle  of  Crecy,  in  1346,  only  a  proportion 
of  the  army  of  Edward  III.  and  the  Black 
Prince  had  horses,  though  we  know  that  almost 
on  the  eve  of  the  campaign  considerable  sums 


126  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

were  spent  upon  the  purchase  of  horses  from 
the  King  of  Gascony  and  from  several  large 
owners. 

This  seems  stranger  still  when  we  remember 
that  the  English  army  at  Crecy  was  limited  to 
some  36,000  men  only,  whereas  King  Philip's 
forces  numbered  over  130,000. 

Crecy,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  few  historical  battles 
in  which  the  army  that  was  the  best  mounted  did 
not  win  the  day  ;  but  then  all  historians  admit 
that  the  bowmen  the  English  brought  into  the 
field  upon  that  occasion  were  probably  among 
the  best  disciplined  and  the  most  expert  that  had 
ever  before  been  seen  in  action. 

On  the  other  hand  the  horses  of  the  opposing 
forces  were  not  of  the  best.  Many  had  hardly 
been  trained  at  all  to  arms,  and  many  more  had 
been  commandeered  and  hurried  into  the  field 
almost  at  the  eleventh  hour.  Some  historians 
hold  that  Philip's  army  would  have  fared  better 
had  there  been  fewer  men-at-arms  in  the  fight- 
ing line,  and  it  is  possible  that  upon  this  single 
occasion  if  the  army  had  had  fewer  horses  it 
might  have  achieved  success. 


CHAPTER   II 

Richard  II.'s  horse,  Roan  Barbary— Thoroughbred  English 
horses  characteristic  of  the  nation— Chaucer ;  Cambuscan's  wooden 
horse— Don  Quixote's  Aligero  Clavileno— Horse  race  between 
the  Prince  of  Wales  and  Lord  Arundel — The  Chevalier  Bayard  ; 
his  horse,  Carman — The  Earl  of  Warwick's  horse,  Black  Saladin 
— Joan  of  Arc — King  Richard's  horse,  White  Surrey — Charles 
VIII.  of  France's  horse,  Savoy— Dame  Julyana  Berners— Wolsey's 
horsemanship — Queen  Elizabeth's  stud 

"TT7HEN  the  Pale  was  troubled  by  an 
*  *  eruption  of  the  O' Byrnes  and  O'Moores 
in  1372" — Professor  Ridgeway  writes  in  his 
interesting  and  instructive  work,  "The  Origin 
and  Influence  of  the  Thoroughbred  Horse" — 
"  who  burned  the  priory  of  Athy,  John  Colton, 
the  first  Master  of  Gonville  Hall  (now  Gonville 
and  Caius  College)  and  successively  Dean  of  St 
Patrick's,  Chancellor  of  Ireland,  and  Archbishop 
of  Armagh,  raised  a  force  of  twenty-six  knights 
and  a  large  body  of  men-at-arms  and  fell  upon 
the  Irish  and  defeated  them  with  great  slaughter." 

Upon  referring  to  the  records  of  this  incident, 
to  be  found  in  several  of  our  histories,  it  becomes 
evident  that  in  the  Pale  at  that  time  there  must 
have  been  many  horses  of  the  stamp  that  to-day 
we  speak  of  as  the  "  great "  horse. 

The  insurrection  alluded  to  so  lightly  as  "an 
127 


128  THE   HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

eruption  of  the  O' Byrnes  and  O'Moores"  in 
reality  was  a  serious  affair,  due,  we  are  told, 
mainly  to  the  almost  total  disregard  of  certain 
just  demands  made  by  O'Byrne,  O'Moore  and 
their  followers.  The  Irish  were  for  the  most 
part  badly  mounted  and  poorly  armed,  many  of 
their  horses  having  been  seized  surreptitiously  a 
short  time  prior  to  the  outbreak,  but  they  appear 
to  have  made  a  very  gallant  defence. 

John  Colton's  men-at-arms  were,  however, 
nearly  all  of  great  weight  and  heavily  armed,  so 
it  is  not  surprising  to  read  that  they  "  made  short 
work  of  the  Irish  rebels."  Remarkable  would  it 
have  been  had  they  not  done  so,  for  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  their  suppressors  were  of  im- 
measurably superior  strength. 


A  horse  foaled  some  years  after  this,  which 
lived  to  become  famous  in  British  history,  was 
King  Richard  II.'s  barbary,  often  called  Roan 
Barbary.  The  king,  we  are  told  in  rather 
extravagant  language,  "loved  Roan  Barbary  as 
an  only  son,"  and  certainly  it  is  true  that  he  was 
exceptionally  fond  of  this  particular  horse  which 
poets,  dramatists  and  writers  of  romance  at 
various  periods  have  all  united  in  immortalising. 

Richard's  grief  and  rage  at  hearing  that  Boling- 
broke  had  chosen  Roan  Barbary,  of  all  horses, 


ROAN   BARBARY  129 

upon  which  to  ride  to  Westminster  when  he 
went  there  to  be  crowned,  has  many  times  been 
described,  Shakespeare  himself  referring  to  the 
incident  in  King  Richard  II.  in  the  well-known 
line,  "  When  Bolingbroke  rode  on  Roan  Barbary, 
that  horse  that  thou  so  often  hast  bestrid." 
Roan  Barbary  was  a  tall  horse,  well  shaped  and 
well  schooled,  but  of  uncertain  temper.  The  king 
"  could  do  with  the  steed  whate'er  he  wished," 
but  some  of  the  grooms  hardly  dared  approach 
to  groom  it  "  lest  he  sideways  kick  them." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  here  that  the  history  of 
early  times,  when  it  touches  upon  horses — which 
it  does  frequently — alludes  upon  many  occasions 
to  the  partiality  of  particular  horses  for  certain 
persons,  and  to  their  equally  marked  dislike  for 
certain  other  persons. 

The  inference  naturally  would  be  that  these  par- 
ticular horses  were  partial  to  the  men  who  treated 
them  humanely  and  disliked  those  who  ill-treated 
them.  If  the  early  historians  are  to  be  believed, 
however,  the  horses'  likes  and  dislikes  for  various 
persons  were  irrespective  of  the  way  they  had 
been  treated  by  such  persons. 

Particularly  does  this  appear  to  have  been  the 
case  with  Roan  Barbary,  for  we  are  assured  that 
all  who  had  charge  of  him,  or  to  do  with  him  in 
any  way,  treated  him  invariably  "with  kindness 
and  great  cordiality  "  (!)  the  king  having  issued 
strict  orders  that  they  should. 


130  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

In  the  British  Museum  there  may  be  seen 
to-day  a  French  metrical  history  of  the  deposition 
of  Richard  II.  which  informs  us  that  the  king 
owned  "many  a  good  horse  of  foreign  breed." 


Mr  J.  P.  Hore,  the  well-known  authority,  is  of 
opinion  that  "the  thoroughbred  English  horse 
was  characteristic  of  the  nation  "  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  II.,  and  adds  that  "horses  were  then 
recognised  and  their  praises  sung." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  between  1377  and  1399 
the  interest  taken  in  horses  in  this  country  by 
persons  of  almost  every  class  developed  rapidly. 
The  agricultural  community  in  particular  had 
by  then  begun  to  turn  its  attention  seriously  to 
the  rearing  of  a  better  stamp  of  horse,  and  we 
know  that  Chaucer,  who  lived  from  1328  to  1400, 
tells  us  that  his  famous  monk  had  "full  many  a 
daintie  horse  in  stable." 

Chaucer's  interesting  references  to  the  various 
sorts  of  horse  in  use  in  the  fourteenth  century  are 
numerous,  and  they  serve  to  show  that  persons 
of  different  rank  rode  horses  of  different  stamp. 
Thus  on  that  fine  April  morning  when  the  motley 
party  of  pilgrims  set  out  from  the  Bell  at  South- 
wark  upon  their  hasty  journey  we  find  the 
Knight  mounted  on  a  big  and  powerful  horse — 
naturally  a  knight  wearing  armour  needed  such 


CHAUCER  131 

a  beast  to  carry  him — whereas  the  steed  ridden 
by  "the  Clerk  of  Oxenford "  was  "as  leane  as 
any  rake." 

The  Wife  of  Bath,  on  the  other  hand,  with  her 
"great  spurs,"  sat  astride  an  "amblere";  the 
Ploughman  rode  "a  mere";  the  Shipman  from 
Dartmouth  rode  "a  rouncy  as  he  couth";  while  the 
Reeve  "  sat  upon  a  fit  good  stot  that  was  all  pomely 
gray,  and  highte  Scot."  In  the  "  Knight's  Tale" 
we  find  the  King  of  Ynde  riding  "  a  horse  of  baye." 

Apparently  at  this  time  greater  attention 
was  paid  to  the  breeding  and  rearing  of  horses 
for  war  than  for  hunting  or  for  "speed  com- 
petitions "  or  any  other  purpose.  Evidently 
King  Richard  had  become  more  fully  aware  of 
the  possibilities  that  existed  for  the  use  of 
powerful  cavalry  than  any  of  his  predecessors 
had  done.  Indeed  he  is  said  to  have  expressed 
upon  one  occasion  a  strong  wish  that  his  army 
might  one  day  consist  of  cavalry  only. 

He  believed,  too,  that  the  heavier  the  chargers 
were  the  more  formidable  the  regiment  must  be, 
and  so  wholly  did  this  belief  obsess  him  that 
upon  occasions  he  betrayed  a  tendency  to  over- 
look the  fact  that  the  heaviest  horses  in  the 
world,  the  most  finely  trained — in  short,  the  best 
— must  necessarily  prove  comparatively  useless 
unless  their  riders,  in  addition  to  being  brave  and 
well  armed,  were  thoroughly  trained  horsemen 
and  well  disciplined. 


132  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Referring  again  to  Chaucer,  we  find  in  the 
"  Squire's  Tale,"  which  he  did  not  finish,  the 
well-known  story  of  Cambuscan's  wooden  horse, 
and  we  find  this  also  in  "The  Arabian  Nights" 
— that  series  of  delightful  narratives  said  to  have 
been  first  made  known  by  Antoine  Gallard,  the 
French  Oriental  scholar.  The  famous  brazen 
horse  of  romance  is  the  same,  for  it  was  Cam- 
buscan's, and  Cambuscan  was  King  of  Sarra,  in 
Tartary.  Cambuscan  possessed,  so  it  was  said, 
all  the  virtues  that  are  popularly  attributed  to 
a  king,  yet  withal  none  of  a  king's  vices  ;  also 
he  was  said  to  be  passionately  devoted  to  his 
queen,  Elfeta,  who  bore  him  two  sons,  Algarsife 
and  Cambalo,  and  one  daughter,  Canace. 

We  are  further  told  that  the  King  of  Arabia 
and  India  presented  Cambuscan  with  "a  steed  of 
brass,  which  between  sunrise  and  sunset  would 
carry  its  rider  to  any  spot  on  earth."  To  make 
the  horse  do  this  all  that  was  necessary  was  that 
its  rider  should  whisper  into  its  ear  the  name  of 
the  place  to  which  he  wished  to  travel,  and  that 
he  should  then  mount  the  horse  and  turn  a  pin 
set  in  its  ear. 

This  done,  the  "  animal "  would  go  direct  and 
at  great  speed  to  the  place  required,  whereupon 
the  rider  turned  another  pin  and  descended.  By 
turning  a  third  pin  it  was  possible  to  make  the 
horse  vanish  and  not  reappear  until  its  presence 
was  again  needed. 


PRINCE  OF  WALES  &  LORD  ARUNDEL     133 

Aligero  Clavileno  was  the  full  name  of  the 
winged  horse  with  the  wooden  pin,  the  horse 
which  Don  Quixote  rode  upon  the  memorable 
occasion  of  his  rescue  of  Dolorida  and  her  com- 
panions. 

But  enough  of  fairy  tales  and  nonsense.  Com- 
ing to  the  subject  of  horse  races  in  early  times 
we  find  it  gravely  stated  that  "the  earliest  de- 
scription of  a  horse  race  per  se  occurs  in  1377," 
though  we  know  that  race  meetings  of  a  sort 
were  held  long  before  that  date.  The  where- 
abouts of  the  track  where  the  races  in  1377  took 
place  has  not  been  ascertained,  but  it  is  known 
that  some  of  the  horses  which  ran  belonged  to 
Lord  Arundel,  and  some  to  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
so  soon  to  become  Richard  II. 

At  this  meeting  it  was  that  a  match  was 
arranged  to  take  place  between  the  Prince  and 
Lord  Arundel,  each  to  ride  his  own  animal. 
The  match  was  run,  and  as  the  name  of  the 
winner  has  not,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
ascertain,  been  handed  down  to  us,  we  may  con- 
clude that  the  Prince's  horse  was  beaten.  Had 
the  winner  been  ridden  by  a  Prince  of  Wales  some 
record  of  the  victory  would  assuredly  be  extant. 

That  Richard  II.  was  a  fine  horseman,  as 
finished  horsemanship  was  understood  in  those 
days,  there  can  be  but  little  doubt.  Yet  it  is  re- 
markable that  the  natural  gift  known  as  "hands  " 
— that  is  to  say  the  power  some  men  have  of 


134  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

controlling  a  horse  by  delicate  manipulation  of 
the  reins  as  opposed  to  brute  force — apparently 
was  not  taken  into  consideration  in  the  early 
centuries,  or  else  was  not  understood  and  conse- 
quently not  cultivated.  To-day,  of  course,  a  man 
with  bad  " hands"  is  not  deemed  a  horseman, 
properly  speaking. 

Thus  it  comes  that  we  find  some  of  the  early 
instructors  in  horsemanship  deliberately  advising 
the  novice  to  catch  hold  of  the  reins  tightly  in 
order  to  keep  his  seat  with  greater  ease  !  Some 
of  the  early  pictures,  too,  of  men  on  horseback 
show  the  rider  with  his  hands  firmly  clenched, 
even  when  the  horse  is  walking,  the  reins  held 
quite  tight. 

It  has  been  argued  that  men  sheathed  from 
head  to  foot  in  the  heavy  plate  armour  of  the 
fifteenth  century  could  not  have  ridden  gracefully 
even  had  they  wished  to  do  so.  Long  before 
armour  of  that  pattern  had  come  into  vogue, 
however,  the  riders  apparently  were  indifferent 
horsemen  inasmuch  as  they  had  for  the  most  part 
bad  " hands,"  if  we  are  to  judge  from  early 
pictures  and  descriptions. 


Many  stories  to  do  with  horses  have  been 
woven  round  the  celebrated  French  knight, 
Pierre  du  Terrail,  Chevalier  Bayard,  and  it  is 


BAYARD'S   HORSE,   CARMAN         135 

known  that  whatever  the  qualities,  fictitious  or 
otherwise,  may  have  been  that  his  horses  are  al- 
leged to  have  possessed,  Bayard  was  a  fine  rider, 
"the  boldest  horseman  of  his  period"  as  one 
historian  describes  him. 

Of  medium  height,  slim,  and  a  light  weight, 
he  was  "  of  wholly  irreproachable  character "  ; 
hence  the  description  which  still  clings  to  his 
memory — Le  chevalier  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche. 

Truly  remarkable  are  some  of  the  feats  of 
horsemanship  attributed  to  him  still.  Thus  it  is 
said  that  he  could  ride  any  horse  bareback  and 
without  a  bridle,  and  that  he  rode  in  this  way 
several  savage  animals  which,  when  saddled  and 
bridled,  several  famous  horsemen  were  not  able 
even  to  mount.  But  such  stories  must,  of 
course,  be  believed  only  in  part. 

Probably  the  best  horse  owned  by  this  knight 
was  the  one  named  Carman,  or  Carmen,  a  gift  of 
the  Duke  of  Lorrain.  Particulars  about  its  make 
and  shape  apparently  are  not  on  record,  but 
Carman  carried  Bayard  through  several  severe 
engagements,  though  thrice  severely  wounded. 

It  is  said  that  Bayard  was  able  to  guide  this 
horse  by  word  of  mouth  alone,  when  he  found  it 
advisable  to  do  so,  and  that  upon  some  occasions 
the  steed  "  would  neigh  in  reply  as  though  joyful 
at  hearing  its  master's  voice." 

Furthermore  he  could  ride  Carman  over  country 
no  matter  how  rough,  and  the  horse  would  never 


136  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

slip  or  stumble.  It  may  in  addition  have  been  a 
clever  fencer,  for  we  read  that  the  knight  "rode 
with  reckless  daring  at  many  obstacles "  when 
mounted  on  his  favourite  steed. 

In  at  least  one  work  of  fiction  the  Chevalier 
Bayard  has  been  rather  amusingly  confounded 
with  the  mythological  steed  of  the  four  sons 
of  Aymon  that  bore  the  name  Bayard  and  that 
used  so  conveniently  to  grow  larger  when  more 
than  one  of  the  four  sons  wanted  to  mount  it  at 
the  same  time.  The  name  is  said  to  signify  the 
colour  of  bright  bay,  and  the  legend  still  obtains 
that  a  hoof  mark  of  this  mythical  horse  remains 
to  this  day  in  the  forest  of  Soignes,  while  another 
of  its  hoof  marks  may  be  seen  on  a  rock  near 
Dinant.  It  was  of  this  horse  that  Sir  Walter 
Scott  wrote  in  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  the 
following  lines  : — 

"  Stand,  Bayard,  stand  !     The  steed  obeyed 
With  arching  neck,  and  bended  head, 
And  glaring  eye  and  quivering  ear, 
As  if  he  loved  his  lord  to  hear." 

The  Earl  of  Warwick's  coal-black  charger,  Black 
Saladin,  is  eulogised  in  almost  every  history  of 
the  Wars  of  the  Roses  ;  yet,  when  all  is  said, 
Black  Saladin  does  not  appear  to  have  done  any- 
thing sufficiently  remarkable  to  have  justified  his 
earning  the  immortal  reputation  that  he  un- 
doubtedly has  obtained.  A  big,  powerful  animal, 


JOAN   OF   ARC  137 

it  must  in  justice  be  said  of  him  that  he  carried 
his  master  creditably  through  several  rather  bloody 
encounters  before  man  and  horse  were  killed  in 
the  great  conflict  at  Barnet. 

According  to  Hume's  "  History  of  England  " — 
and  probably  no  history  extant  is  more  accurate 
in  detail — Warwick,  when  he  received  the  fatal 
thrust,  was  fighting  on  foot. 

No  trustworthy  description  is  obtainable  of 
the  horse  that  Joan  of  Arc  rode  when  she  led 
the  French  army  so  successfully  against  the 
previously  victorious  troops  of  Henry  VI.  Only 
one  indisputable  statement  relating  to  her  leader- 
ship upon  that  famous  occasion  has  been  handed 
down  to  us,  and  that  is  that  she  rode  astride. 

Pictures  innumerable  have  been  painted  that 
depict  her  as  she  is  supposed  to  have  appeared 
in  the  heat  of  the  fray,  and  others  that  show  her 
to  us  as  she  ought  to  have  looked  when  the  en- 
gagement was  over.  By  basing  our  impressions 
solely  upon  such  pictures  we  might  well  conclude 
that  the  Pucelle  went  into  action  riding  a  white 
horse  ;  that  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  she  changed 
first  on  to  a  dun-coloured  mare  and  then  on  to  a 
bright  bay  mare  ;  and  that  when  the  engagement 
was  over  she  once  more  changed  horses  in  order 
to  ride  back  triumphant  on  a  stallion  as  black  as 
Black  Saladin  himself! 

According  to  Mr  Douglas  Murray,  whose 
"  History  of  Joan  of  Arc,"  published  recently, 


138  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

is  the  most  exhaustive  and  authoritative  work 
we  have  upon  the  career  of  that  heroic  young 
woman,  Joan  would  appear  to  have  been  quite 
a  good  horsewoman.  "She  rode  horses  so  ill- 
tempered  that  no  one  else  would  dare  to  mount 
them."  The  Duke  of  Lorraine,  also  the  Due 
d'Alen9on,  after  seeing  her  skill  in  riding  a 
course,  each  gave  her  a  horse ;  and  we  read 
also  of  the  gift  of  a  war  horse  from  the  town 
of  Orleans,  and  "many  horses  of  value"  sent 
from  the  Duke  of  Brittany.  She  had  entered 
Orleans  on  a  white  horse,  according  to  the 
Journal  du  Siege  c£  Or  leans;  but  seems  to  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  riding  black  chargers  in  war  ; 
and  mention  is  also  made  by  Chatelain  of  a  "  lyart  " 
or  grey. 

A  story,  repeated  in  a  letter  from  Guy  de 
Laval,  a  grandson  of  Bertrand  du  Guesclin,  re- 
lates that  on  one  occasion  when  her  horse,  "a 
fine  black  war  horse,"  was  brought  to  the  door, 
he  was  so  restive  that  he  would  not  stand  still. 
"  Take  him  to  the  Cross,"  she  said  ;  and  there 
he  stood,  "as  though  he  were  tied,"  while  she 
mounted.  This  was  at  Selles,  in  1429. 

Two  famous  horses  of  the  fifteenth  century 
were  King  Richard's  White  Surrey,  and  Savoy, 
the  favourite  steed  of  King  Charles  VIII.  of 
France,  which  was  coal-black  and  took  its  name 
from  the  Duke  of  Savoy  from  whom  King  Charles 
had  received  it  as  a  present. 


CHARLES    VIII.'S   HORSE,    SAVOY     139 

The  king  rode  White  Surrey  frequently  when 
travelling  in  state.  That  he  had  many  other 
white  steeds  seems  obvious,  and  evidently  he 
was  extremely  partial  to  horses  of  that  colour,  for 
we  find  him  telling  his  nobles  to  use  their  influ- 
ence to  induce  the  wealthier  section  of  his  subjects 
to  breed  and  rear  horses  "  white  and  grey." 

Savoy,  though  what  we  should  to-day  term  a 
"good  plucked"  horse,  is  said  to  have  been  "of 
mean  stature,"  also  it  had  a  blind  eye.  Charles 
VIII.  nevertheless  rode  it  in  preference  to  any 
other  horse  in  his  stud,  and  that  his  stud  was 
a  very  large  one  we  are  told  by  some  of  the 
earlier  historians. 

Not  a  graceful  horseman,  he  nevertheless  had 
a  firm  seat,  and  it  is  interesting  to  read  that 
he  was  extremely  sensitive  upon  the  subject  of 
his  horsemanship.  So  emphatically  was  this  the 
case  that  upon  one  occasion  he  severely  rebuked 
one  of  his  courtiers  who  had  remarked  unwittingly 
in  his  presence  that  men  existed  who  were  physic- 
ally incapable  of  becoming  good  riders.  Accord- 
ing to  this  king,  indeed,  one  of  the  duties  of  every 
gentleman  was  to  become  proficient  in  the  art  of 
horsemanship, 

At  about  this  time — that  is  to  say  towards 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century — a  book  that  has 
since  been  rightly  or  wrongly  described  as  "the 
first  work  on  sport  ever  issued  in  England " 
was  published.  When  first  it  appeared  it 


140  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

attracted  much  attention.  Printed  for  Dame 
Julyana  Berners,  who  evidently  had  much  practical 
knowledge  of  horses  and  the  way  to  manage  them, 
it  mentions  incidentally  that  every  good  horse 
ought  to  possess  the  following  fifteen  "  pro- 
perties "  : — 

"Of  a  man  : — bolde,  prowde,  and  hardy. 
Of  a  woman : — fayrbrested,  fayr  of  heere,  and  easy 

to  leape  upon. 
Of  a  fox : — a  fayr  taylle,  short  eeres,  with  a  good 

trotte. 
Of   a  haare: — a  grete  eye,   a  dry  hede,  and  well 

runnynge. 
Of  an  asse: — a  bygge  chyn,  a  flatte  legge,  and  a 

good  hoof." 

From  the  above  list  we  may  conclude  that  in 
spite  of  the  unwieldy  appearance  of  most  of  the 
horses  shown  in  the  early  drawings  there  must 
have  been  plenty  of  active  animals  in  England 
long  before  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Most  likely  the  large  and  clumsy  horses 
belonged  practically  to  the  class  that  to-day  we 
speak  of  as  shire  horses,  and  that  the  majority 
were  employed  for  carrying  men  in  armour, 
historians  being  unanimous  in  declaring  that 
by  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  man 
of  medium  height  could  not,  when  sheathed  in 
armour,  have  weighed  together  with  the  armour 
worn  by  his  horse  less  than  some  thirty  stone, 
and  that  often  he  must  have  weighed  more. 


WOLSEY'S   HORSEMANSHIP          141 

This  no  doubt  is  the  reason  we  read  so  fre- 
quently that  in  the  sixteenth  century  considerable 
attention  was  paid  to  breeding  and  rearing  great 
horses  of  Flanders,  Friesland,  France  and  Ger- 
many. 


The  majority  of  our  historians  seem  not  to 
have  realised  fully  that  in  Thomas  Wolsey,  after- 
wards Cardinal  Wolsey,  we  had  probably  one  of 
the  finest  horsemen  of  the  period  of  Henry  VII. 
and  Henry  VIII.  The  extreme  brilliancy  of 
Wolsey's  public  career  possibly  may  have  caused 
his  lesser  accomplishments  to  be  eclipsed  or  over- 
looked, for  that  he  possessed  minor  accomplish- 
ments is  well  known. 

It  was  in  Henry  VI I. 's  reign,  and  probably 
about  the  year  1500,  that  Wolsey  first  had  occa- 
sion to  display  his  horsemanship  in  rather  a  pro- 
minent manner.  For  we  read  that  "the  king, 
having  received  a  communication  from  the  reign- 
ing emperor,  Maximilian,  and  being  at  a  loss  as 
to  how  he  should  reply  to  it  in  the  shortest  pos- 
sible time,  turned  abruptly  to  Thomas  Wolsey  to 
solicit  his  advice,  Wolsey  being  at  that  time  the 
king's  chaplain  ;  whereupon  Wolsey  replied  with- 
out hesitation  that  if  the  king  would  entrust  him 
with  a  despatch  he  would  deliver  it  to  the  emperor 
with  but  little  delay." 


142  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

After  pondering  the  proposal  for  some  moments, 
Henry  accepted  the  offer,  and  a  little  later  handed 
to  Wolsey  a  sealed  packet,  urging  him  to  convey 
it  with  all  speed  and  not  be  hindered  by  anybody. 
This  took  place,  we  are  told,  at  Richmond,  at 
about  noon.  Then  and  there  the  chaplain 
mounted  the  horse  he  had  ready,  and  rode 
away. 

That  he  must  have  galloped  almost  all  the 
way  to  Dover,  changing  horses  several  times,  is 
certain,  for  he  arrived  there  on  the  following 
morning  before  daylight.  By  noon  on  the  day 
after  he  was  at  Calais,  and  at  nightfall  he  per- 
sonally handed  King  Henry's  sealed  dispatch  to 
to  the  Emperor  Maximilian.  Having  received 
Maximilian's  reply,  Wolsey  at  once  mounted  a 
fresh  horse  that  had  been  saddled  for  him  and 
set  out  once  more  for  Calais,  which  town  he 
reached  on  the  same  night,  so  that  by  the  follow- 
ing evening  he  was  again  at  Richmond. 

The  king,  however,  had  already  retired  to 
rest,  and  Wolsey  therefore  was  compelled  to 
wait  until  the  morning  to  deliver  Maximilian's 
reply.  It  so  happened  that  he  was  walking  in 
the  park  when  presently  the  king  overtook  him 
and  at  once  began  to  upbraid  him  for  his  delay 
in  starting  for  France.  Wolsey  remained  silent 
and  collected  until  the  king  had  stopped  speak- 
ing, then,  without  a  word,  he  produced  the  des- 
patch that  he  had  brought  from  Maximilian. 


WOLSEY'S   HORSEMANSHIP          143 

King  Henry,  we  are  told,  was  thereupon  "both 
amazed  and  delighted,"  and  with  great  rapidity 
the  story  of  the  chaplain's  remarkable  ride  to 
Paris  and  back  again  was  noised  abroad. 

Wolsey's  reputation  for  horsemanship  was 
firmly  established  from  that  time  forward,  and 
Henry,  to  mark  his  appreciation  of  the  chaplain's 
exploit,  bestowed  upon  him  the  deanery  of 
Lincoln,  and  not  long  afterwards  made  him  his 
almoner.  Thus  did  the  man  obtain  his  first 
step  to  power  who  one  day  was  to  become  the 
all-powerful  Cardinal. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  find  in  any  books  or 
documents  particulars  concerning  the  horses  rid- 
den by  Wolsey  in  that  famous  journey.  From 
what  has  been  said,  however,  we  may  conclude 
that  he  rode  horses  of  a  stamp  very  different 
from  the  heavy,  clumsy  animals  so  plentiful  in 
England  at  the  time,  for  to  have  covered  so 
many  miles  in  so  few  hours  the  horses  must  have 
been  of  the  swiftest,  especially  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  the  roads  at  that  period  were  of  the 
roughest  possible  description. 

In  later  years,  owing  partly  to  his  increasing 
weight,  Wolsey  almost  entirely  gave  up  riding. 
Yet  the  interest  that  he  had  always  taken  in 
horse  breeding  remained,  and  though  his  many 
and  arduous  duties  occupied  much  of  his  leisure 
he  nevertheless  found  time  to  devote  some 
of  his  attention  to  the  rearing  of  riding  and 


144  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

driving  horses,  and  to  the  breeding  of  shire 
horses. 

Some  of  his  Eastern  sires,  indeed — and  we 
know  that  he  had  a  large  stud  of  them — are 
said  to  have  been  among  the  most  valuable  of 
the  breeding  stock  that  until  then  had  ever  been 
known,  which  may  have  been  the  reason  that  in 
after  years  Queen  Elizabeth  expended  such  vast 
sums  upon  increasing  and  still  further  improving 
the  stud  that  had  been  Wolsey's. 

Elizabeth,  however,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
upon  the  whole  took  greater  interest  in  "  running 
horses "  than  in  the  clumsy  shire  stallions,  and 
though  it  is  said  that  she  never  was  actually 
present  at  a  race  meeting  held  at  Newmarket, 
she  is  known  to  have  owned  a  number  of  race 
horses  the  majority  of  which  were  stabled  near 
Greenwich  and  trained  chiefly  upon  Blackheath. 

In  connection  with  Wolsey  and  his  undoubted 
fondness  for  horses,  it  is  interesting  to  learn  that 
he  cared  but  little  for  any  form  of  gambling, 
though  "the  sight  of  a  contest  between  running 
horses  of  high  spirit  delighted  him."  Until  the 
period  when  he  gave  up  riding  he  preferred  at 
all  times  to  be  himself  on  horseback  rather  than 
watch  others,  a  statement  that  has  been  mis- 
interpreted by  one  writer  to  mean  that  Wolsey 
preferred  to  ride  in  races  rather  than  watch  others 
ride  races  for  him  ! 

I   believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  Wolsey 


WOLSEY'S   HORSEMANSHIP          145 

never  rode  in  any  race  of  any  kind,  also  that  he 
took  more  active  interest  in  the  chase  than  in 
the  turf — such  turf,  that  is  to  say,  as  there  was 
in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  to  take 
interest  in. 

Upon  that  point  Henry  VII.  held  views  some- 
what different  from  his  chaplain's.  The  spectacle 
afforded  by  a  horse  race  gave  him  scant  gratifica- 
tion, and  as  a  result  he  did  little  to  develop  and 
encourage  horse  racing  or  to  better  the  condition 
of  the  turf. 

Probably  the  only  ride  in  the  nature  of  a  horse 
race  that  did  stir  him  into  displaying  enthusiasm 
was  Wolsey's  race  just  described.  This  feat 
Wolsey  but  rarely  spoke  about,  save  when  ques- 
tioned by  friends.  His  technical  knowledge  of 
horses  is  said  to  have  been  profound,  so  much 
so  that  frequently  men  quite  unknown  to  him 
would  come  many  miles  to  obtain  his  opinion 
upon  the  condition  of  a  sick  horse,  and  usually 
he  was  willing  to  tender  advice  even  to  strangers. 

Indeed  his  willingness  to  be  of  service  when  a 
horse  was  in  distress  appears  to  have  remained 
one  of  Wolsey's  marked  characteristics  until 
nearly  the  end  of  his  life.  Historians  have  for 
the  most  part  depicted  him  a  stern,  unbending 
man  from  the  time  he  was  made  Cardinal ;  yet  he 
is  known  to  have  performed  many  small  acts  of 
kindness  for  which  the  world  probably  did  not 
give  him  credit. 


146  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Whether  the  advice  he  tendered  in  cases  of 
horse  sickness  was  invarably  sound  is  doubtful. 
The  amazing  ignorance  of  the  anatomy  of  the 
human  body  that  prevailed  four  hundred  years 
ago  leads  naturally  to  the  inference  that  ignor- 
ance of  the  anatomy  of  the  horse  must  have  been 
even  greater.  Probably  the  advice  tendered  by 
Wolsey  was  about  upon  a  par  in  point  of  sound- 
ness with  the  advice  that  passed  current  towards 
the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  centuries  for  *  'wisdom  in  medicine  and 
chirurgery." 

Certainly  we  do  not  find  allusion  made  to  such 
common  modern  ailments  in  horses  as  spavins, 
navicular,  ringbones  and  splints.  Cracked  heels 
may  have  been  a  common  frequent  source  of 
lameness,  for  the  shoes  ordinarily  used  were 
clumsy,  crude  things  knocked  into  shape  in  a 
rudimentary  way,  even  those  with  which  the 
most  valuable  of  horses  were  commonly  shod. 

The  horse  breakers  and  trainers  of  the  early 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century  seem  to  have  been 
of  one  opinion  as  to  the  most  effectual  way  of, 
so  to  speak,  bringing  a  horse  to  his  senses,  and 
that  was  the  simplest  way  of  all — namely,  by 
starving  him ! 

That  so  barbarous,  and,  let  it  be  added  so 
wholly  ineffectual  a  method  should  have  been 
resorted  to  where  horses  were  concerned  is  per- 
haps hardly  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  bear  in 


TRAINING   BY   STARVATION         147 

mind  that  only  a  little  over  a  century  ago  the 
same  method  was  employed  with  lunatics  who 
showed  signs  of  insubordination. 

For  the  idea  used  to  be — and  it  has  not  yet 
quite  died  out — that  a  high  temper  must  primarily 
be  the  outcome  of  high  feeding.  We  read  that 
upon  one  occasion  Henry  VII.  commanded  that 
a  horse  he  was  to  ride  in  a  public  procession  be 
left  unfed  for  twenty-four  hours,  and  as  no  reason 
is  assigned  for  the  order  we  are  justified  in  con- 
jecturing that  he  must  have  felt  inwardly  nervous, 
possibly  that  he  feared  the  animal  might,  if  fed 
as  usual,  prove  to  be  what  we  call  to-day  "  a 
handful  " ! 

In  other  respects  the  horses  of  some  four 
hundred  years  ago  would  seem  to  have  been 
treated  at  any  rate  with  ordinary  humanity. 


CHAPTER   III 

Inauguration  and  development  of  the  Royal  Stud — Exportation 
of  horses  declared  by  Henry  VIII.  to  be  illegal — Sale  of  horses 
to  Scotsmen  pronounced  to  be  an  act  of  felony — Riding  matches 
become  popular — Ferdinand  of  Arragon's  gift  of  horses  to  Henry 
VIII. — Henry's  love  of  hunting — King  Henry  stakes  the  bells  of 
St  Paul's  on  a  throw  of  the  dice — Some  horses  of  romance — Horse- 
breeding  industry  crippled  in  Scotland 

'T"AHE  accession  of  Henry  VIII.  to  the  throne, 
in  1509,  marked  the  beginning  of  a  great 
development  in  the  breeding  and  rearing  of  valu- 
able horses,  for  that  erratic  monarch,  whatever 
his  failings  may  have  been — and  that  he  had  a 
few  failings  we  have  reason  to  know — was  at 
heart  a  sportsman  in  the  true  meaning  of  the 
now  frequently  misused  term. 

We  read  that  soon  after  ascending  the  throne 
"he  took  steps  to  arrange  for  the  importation 
from  Italy,  Spain,  Turkey  and  elsewhere,  at 
regular  intervals,  of  the  best  stallions  and  some 
of  the  best  mares  procurable."  That  done,  he 
set  to  work  to  establish  at  Hampton  Court  the 
Royal  Stud  which  later  was  to  become  so 
famous,  and  among  the  many  horses  he  received 
as  gifts — the  majority  from  men  anxious  to  keep 
in  favour  with  a  monarch  so  all-powerful—were 
the  famous  mares  "  perfect  in  shape  and  size  "  that 

148 


THE  ROYAL   STUD  149 

Francesco  Gonzaga,  the  Marquis  of  Mantua,  sent 
over  in  1514,  a  gift  to  which  he  soon  afterwards 
added  "a  Barb  worth  its  weight  in  silver"  which 
he  declared  he  had  taken  great  pains  to  secure. 

That  Henry  was  deeply  gratified  is  obvious 
from  his  remark  that  he  "  had  never  ridden  better 
trained  horses,"  and  that  "for  years  he  had  not 
received  such  an  agreeable  present." 


As  time  went  on,  and  the  Royal  Stud  steadily 
increased,  the  fame  of  Henry's  horses  spread  not 
only  throughout  the  kingdom,  but  also  across  the 
seas  and  into  remote  parts  of  the  Continent,  with 
the  natural  result  that  presently  attempts  were 
made  to  obtain  surreptitiously  foals  known  to  have 
been  bred  in  the  famous  paddocks. 

Henry,  upon  hearing  this,  became  extremely 
angry,  and  this  knowledge  it  probably  was  that 
in  a  measure  prompted  him  to  render  illegal  the 
exportation  beyond  the  seas  of  mares  or  horses 
bred  in  England,  and,  in  addition,  to  threaten  with 
severe  punishment  anyone  discovered  making  the 
attempt. 

There  cannot,  indeed,  be  any  doubt  that  before 
the  passing  of  this  Act  many  horses  had  been 
sent  abroad  from  various  parts  of  the  country, 
and  that  in  consequence  the  British  stock  probably 
would  soon  have  depreciated  in  value  had  Henry 


150  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

not  thus  effectually  put  a  stop  to  the  practice  at 
the  outset. 

Yet  we  are  told  that  in  spite  of  this  the  king's 
act  greatly  annoyed  several  of  the  more  powerful 
of  his  nobles,  even  that  in  some  of  the  provinces 
it  led  almost  to  open  rebellion,  many  men  of 
private  means  having  been  in  the  habit  of  con- 
siderably augmenting  their  fortunes  by  secretly 
exporting  horses  upon  what  was  in  those  days 
deemed  to  be  rather  a  large  scale. 

So  strong,  indeed,  did  the  feeling  throughout 
the  country  gradually  grow,  that  in  a  short  time 
it  was  decided  to  present  the  king  with  "  a 
request" — presumably  what  we  should  to-day 
term  a  petition — in  the  hope  that  he  might  there- 
by be  induced  to  revoke  his  rather  arbitrary 
order. 

Whether  the  request  ever  was  presented  does 
not  appear,  but  certainly  Henry  did  not  revoke 
the  order. 

On  the  contrary,  soon  after  prohibiting  the 
exportation  of  horses  beyond  the  seas  he  issued 
a  supplementary  edict  which  in  effect  rendered 
the  exportation  of  horses  to  any  foreign  port, 
with  the  exception  of  Calais,  a  very  grave  offence  ; 
while  the  "  exportation"  of  horses  into  Scotland, 
and  even  the  bare  act  of  selling  to  any  Scotsman 
any  horse  without  having  first  obtained  the  king's 
permission  to  do  so,  became  an  act  of  felony  alike 
to  vendor  and  purchaser. 


SEVERE   AND   UNJUST   LAWS        151 

Of  course  so  unjust  a  law  as  the  latter  soon 
stirred  up  a  strong  feeling  of  resentment  amongst 
Henry's  subjects  ;  yet  in  spite  of  their  bitter  com- 
plaints they  were  compelled  to  comply  with  it, 

Thus  it  soon  came  about  that  men  who  had 
been  living  comparatively  in  opulence  before  the 
passing  of  these  laws  now  found  themselves  re- 
duced to  genteel  poverty,  whereupon,  as  if  to  add 
insult  to  injury,  Henry  passed  yet  another  statute 
-27,  Henry  VIII,  c.  6. 

This  statute  enacted  that  all  farmers  in  receipt 
of  a  certain  stated  income,  also  all  owners  of  parks, 
as  well  as  certain  other  persons,  should  rear  and 
keep  a  specified  number  of  brood  mares,  of  a 
height  not  less  than  thirteen  hands,  the  penalty 
for  failing  to  comply  with  the  order  being  fixed 
at  forty  shillings  a  month. 

The  statute  in  addition  commanded  that  upon 
every  park  of  not  less  than  four  miles  in  extent — 
this  is  understood  to  have  meant  four  miles  in 
circumference — at  least  four  mares  should  be 
kept,  the  same  fine,  forty  shillings  a  month,  to 
be  extorted  from  all  who  failed  to  keep  the  law. 

That  these  laws,  though  severe  and  unjust, 
achieved  their  purpose  we  may  conclude  from 
the  statement  that  soon  after  they  had  been  passed 
there  were  to  be  found  in  England  five  times  more 
horses  ready  to  be  put  into  the  field  in  a  case  of 
emergency,  and  that  these  horses  were  all  of  great 
value. 


152  THE   HORSE   IN    HISTORY 

Yet  once  again  an  attempt  was  made  to  induce 
Henry  to  revoke  his  laws  forbidding  the  exporta- 
tion of  horses,  and  again  the  attempt  proved 
futile.  The  Scottish  nation  in  particular  felt 
deeply  aggrieved  at  what  they  somewhat  natur- 
ally deemed  to  be  an  insult  paid  to  them  by  the 
king,  but  Henry,  beyond  threatening  that  if  the 
complaints  continued  he  would  put  a  stop  to  them 
in  rather  a  forcible  manner,  paid  no  heed  whatever. 
And  at  just  about  this  time  it  was  that  a  number 
of  Lowlanders  were,  so  it  is  alleged,  severely 
punished  for  purchasing  horses  of  Englishmen  in 
defiance  of  Henry's  command. 

And  still  the  king  remained  unsatisfied.  He 
had  openly  declared  that  he  would  transform 
England  into  the  foremost  country  in  Europe 
for  valuable  and  well-bred  horses,  and  to  facil- 
itate his  doing  so  he  presently  passed  another 
statute. 

In  this  statute  he  commanded  that  stoned  horses 
under  fifteen  hands  were  not  to  be  put  to  pasture 
in  any  wood  or  forest  in  certain  counties  (which 
he  mentioned),  the  penalty  for  breaking  the  law 
to  be  forfeiture  to  the  Crown,  while  in  certain 
other  counties  the  law  was  to  apply  to  horses 
under  fourteen  hands. 

Yet  another  statute  which  he  drew  up — 33, 
Henry  VIII.,  c.  5 — enacted  that  dukes  and 
archbishops  must  maintain  seven  stoned  trot- 
ting horses  for  the  saddle ;  marquises,  earls  and 


SEVERE   AND   UNJUST   LAWS        153 

bishops,  five ;  and  viscounts  and  barons  with 
incomes  of  not  less  than  1000  marks,  five. 

In  the  same  way  subjects  with  an  income 
of  500  marks  were  each  to  .maintain  two  of 
these  trotting  horses  for  the  saddle,  while  men 
with  an  income  of  100  marks,  whose  wives 
should  "  wear  any  gown  of  silk,  or  any  French 
hood  or  bonnet  of  velvet,  with  any  habiliment, 
paste  or  egg  of  gold,  pearl  or  stone,  or  any 
chain  of  gold  about  their  necks,  or  in  their 
partlets,  or  in  any  apparel  on  their  body,"  were 
by  the  law  compelled  to  maintain  one  saddle 
horse,  severe  penalties  being  inflicted  if  they 
failed  to  do  so. 

I  have  somewhere  seen  it  stated  that  these  Acts 
were  repealed  by  Edward  VI.,  but  they  were  not. 
They  were  developed  by  William  and  Mary,  and 
further  developed  by  Elizabeth.  Upon  each  occa- 
sion the  renewal  and  development  of  these  statutes 
caused  bad  blood  and  brought  forth  threats  of 
retaliation,  but  the  latter  were  not  carried  out. 

That  the  obvious  injustice  of  laws  so  arbitrary 
should  have  created  friction,  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at ;  yet  the  benefit  that  subsequently  accrued  to 
the  country  through  passing  them  was  enor- 
mous. 

Indeed  it  is  more  than  likely  that  if  Henry  VIII., 
William  and  Mary,  and  Elizabeth  had  given  way 
to  the  demands  of  a  great  body  of  their  subjects 
between  three  and  four  hundred  years  ago,  Eng- 


154  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

land  would  not  have  become  famous  above  all 
other  countries  for  its  horses,  as  it  is  to-day. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  that  riding 
matches  first  began  to  acquire  popularity,  and  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  "  bloods  "  of  about  that 
period.  Several  descriptions  of  the  way  in  which 
such  matches  were  arranged  and  carried  out  are 
in  existence,  and  perhaps  a  brief  account  of  rather 
a  famous  match  that  was  ridden  by  Richard  de  la 
Pole,  the  third  Duke  of  Suffolk,  against  Seigneur 
Nicolle  Dex,  will  here  prove  of  interest. 

The  Duke  of  Suffolk— "  Blanche  Rose"  as  his 
intimate  friends  called  him — was  the  third  son 
of  John  de  la  Pole,  his  mother  being  the  Lady 
Elizabeth  Plantagenet,  Edward  IV.'s  and  Richard 
III.'s  sister. 

In  the  year  1517,  soon  after  the  Duke  had 
returned  to  Metz,  the  popularity  of  the  turf  began 
suddenly  to  increase,  and  thus  it  happened  that 
the  Duke  presently  became  the  possessor  of  a 
horse  said  to  be  "  very  swift  and  of  extreme  value," 
of  which  he  boasted  that  it  could  beat  all  comers. 
It  was  while  talking  thus  in  Metz  one  day  that 
Blanche  Rose  was  taken  at  his  word  by  the 
Seigneur  Nicolle  Dex,  who  declared  without 
hesitation  that  he  could  and  would  himself  pro- 
duce and  ride  a  horse  against  the  Duke's  "from 
the  Elm  at  Avegney  to  within  St  Clement's  Gate," 
for  the  sum  of  eighty  crowns  "and  win  easily." 

At  once  Blanche  Rose  accepted  the  challenge, 


RIDING  MATCHES  BECOME  POPULAR     155 

promising  at  the  same  time  that  he  too  would  ride 
his  own  horse,  and  forthwith  the  stakes  were 
handed  to  "an  independent  and  neutral  person" 
by  each  of  the  contestants. 

Arrangements  having  been  made  that  the  match 
should  be  run  early  in  the  morning  of  St  Clement's 
Day,  May  2nd,  we  read  that,  "a  ce  jour  meisme 
que  Ton  courre  1'awaine  et  le  baicon  au  dit  lieu 
St  Clement,"  the  two  riders,  accompanied  by 
many  of  their  friends,  went  out  through  St 
Thiebault's  gate,  which  had  been  opened  before 
the  usual  time  to  suit  their  convenience,  "and 
so  passed  into  the  field  for  the  race." 

There  was  much  wagering  on  the  result,  and, 
as  we  should  to-day  express  it,  the  Duke's  mount 
was  hot  favourite.  That  Seigneur  Nicolle  was 
no  novice  in  race  riding  is  made  manifest  by  the 
statement  that  he  had  taken  the  precaution  to 
have  his  horse  shod  with  extremely  light  shoes, 
also  that  "  he  came  into  the  field  like  a  groom,  in 
his  doublet  and  without  shoes,  and  with  no  saddle 
but  with  a  cloth  tied  round  the  horse's  belly," 
whereas  the  Duke  wore  comparatively  heavy 
clothing  and  rode  in  a  heavy  saddle. 

The  Duke's  horse,  however,  jumped  away  with 
the  lead  and  retained  it  during  the  first  half  of 
the  race,  "  but  when  they  were  near  St  Laidre 
his  horse  lagged  behind,  so  that  the  Duke  urged 
him  on  with  spurs  until  the  blood  streamed  down 
on  both  sides  ;  but  it  was  in  vain,  Nicolle  gained 


156  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

the  race  and  the  hundred  and  sixty  crowns  of  the 


sum." 


Several  writers  tell  us  that  Nicolle  Dex  had 
trained  his  horse  on  white  wine,  but  the  truth 
would  seem  to  be  that  he  himself  trained  on 
white  wine.  We  are  informed,  in  addition,  that 
the  horse  was  not  given  any  hay. 

"  Le  dit  Seigneur  Nicolle  n'avoit  point  donne 
de  foin  a  son  chevaulx,  ne  n'avoit  beu  aultre 
chose  que  du  vin  blanc." 

What  the  horses  of  four  hundred  years  ago 
were  chiefly  fed  on  is  uncertain.  We  know 
that  usually  they  were  given  hay,  but  we  find 
mention  made  repeatedly  of  "  horse  bread." 
Probably  this  horse  bread  resembled  the  modern 
oil  cake  upon  which  cattle  is  fed,  for  we  read  that 
it  tended  to  make  the  horses'  coats  "  soft  and 
glossy,"  an  attribute  of  oil  cake  of  which  horse 
dealers  are  well  aware. 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  mention  in  this 
connection  that  in  Henry  VIII.'s  time,  and  in- 
deed down  to  a  much  later  period,  the  art  of 
training  horses,  as  we  understand  it  to-day,  was 
practically  in  its  infancy.  Also  we  are  able  to 
infer  that  it  was  quite  a  common  practice  to  give 
a  horse  a  drink  of  water  just  before  running  him 
in  a  race,  and  that  what  we  to-day  allude  to  as 
the  art  of  judging  pace  in  connection  with  race 
riding  probably  had  never  been  even  thought  of. 

In   Henry  VIII.'s  reign  the  habit  of  naming 


GROTESqUE   NAMES  157 

horses  after  their  breeder  on  their  previous  owner 
would  appear  to  have  come  into  vogue  rather 
largely,  and  from  that  time  onward,  for  some 
three  centuries  and  a  half,  to  have  remained  in 
vogue.  After  that  it  became  customary  to  name 
race  horses  in  rather  a  grotesque  manner. 

I  have  by  me  a  list  of  names  of  race  horses 
almost  all  of  which  must  have  been  animals  well 
known  in  their  time.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
hear  what  Messrs  Weatherby  would  say  if  we 
asked  them  to-day  to  enter  a  mare  to  run  under 
the  name  "Pretty  Harlot"  or,  better  still, 
"  Sweetest  when  Naked  "  ! 

Among  Henry  VIII.'s  famous  barbs  we  find 
several  mentioned  by  name,  and  we  read  in- 
cidentally that  "during  four  or  six  days  the 
king  rode  both  Altobello  and  Governatore,  but 
preferred  Governatore." 

The  Marquis  of  Mantua  had  been  renowned 
for  his  skill  in  horsemanship,  as  well  as  for  the 
famous  stud  of  horses  that  he  possessed,  for 
some  years  before  Henry  VIII.  came  to  the 
throne,  and  this  stud  is  said  to  have  reached 
the  acme  of  its  excellence  about  the  year 
1517,  when  Gonzaga,  as  the  Marquis  was  gener- 
ally called,  received  many  more  requests  for 
the  service  of  his  stallions  than  he  was  able  to 
accede  to. 

Many,  if  not  actually  the  majority  of  the  horses 
that  proved  most  successful  upon  the  turf  during 


158  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

the  sixteenth  century  are  said  to  have  been  de- 
scendants of  the  stock  bred  so  carefully  and  with 
so  much  discrimination  by  Gonzaga  or  by  King 
Henry,  from  which  we  may  conclude  that  the 
assertion  made  often  that  until  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne  there  were  no  race  horses  in  this 
country  worth  speaking  of  is  erroneous. 

It  is  said,  apparently  with  truth,  that  Gonzaga 
became  extremely  angry  when,  in  the  year  1515 
—  only  a  few  months  after  he  had  presented 
Henry  with  the  valuable  horses  already  referred 
to — Ferdinand  of  Arragon  sent  Henry  "  a  gift 
of  two  most  excellent  horses,"  with  the  message 
that  he,  Ferdinand,  believed  they  would  be  found 
to  outclass  even  the  fine  horses  already  in  the 
royal  stables  at  Hampton  Court. 

An  apparently  trivial  incident  such  as  this 
helps  to  show  how  thoroughly  in  earnest  the 
men  of  fortune  must  have  been  who  early  in 
the  sixteenth  century  devoted  much  time  and  at- 
tention to  the  breeding  and  rearing  of  valuable 
horses.  It  has  been  alleged  that  the  Marquis 
of  Mantua  made  his  initial  present  of  horses  to 
King  Henry  solely  in  order  to  ingratiate  himself 
in  royal  favour ;  but  the  anxiety  he  clearly  dis- 
played upon  several  occasions  when  gifts  of 
horses  were  sent  to  Henry  by  men  of  rank  and 
fortune  leads  to  the  belief  either  that  Gonzaga 
must  have  been  of  a  jealous  nature,  or  else  that 
he  was  inordinately  proud  of  his  own  stud  and 


FERDINAND'S   GIFT  159 

extremely  desirous  that  its  high  reputation  should 
be  maintained. 

The  value  of  the  two  horses  sent  over  by 
Ferdinand  is  said  to  have  been  approximately 
100,000  ducats.  That  would  seem  to  be  an  im- 
possible sum  to  have  paid  in  a  period  when 
money  was  worth  many  times  more  than  it  is 
to-day ;  but  when  we  read  that  both  horses  were 
richly  caparisoned  (regio  ornatu]  we  may  well 
suppose  that  the  sum  named  included  also  the 
cost  of  trappings. 

Under  the  circumstances  it  is  perhaps  not 
surprising  that  Ferdinand  of  Arragon — Ferdinand 
the  Catholic,  as  he  was  popularly  called — should 
have  been  deemed  insane  by  a  great  body  of  his 
subjects  when  it  became  known  that  he  had  sent 
so  extravagant  a  gift  to  King  Henry,  his  son-in- 
law. 

So  prevalent,  indeed,  was  this  impression,  that 
reasons  were  at  once  put  forward  to  account  for 
the  alleged  lack  of  intellect.  Thus  the  incident 
of  his  having  been  poisoned  two  years  before  by 
his  new  queen,  Germaine  de  Fois,  was  mentioned 
amongst  possible  causes,  the  serious  illness  that 
followed  having  proved  almost  fatal. 

Particulars  of  this  attempt  upon  the  life  of 
Ferdinand  the  Catholic  are  to  be  found  in  one 
of  the  letters  of  Peter  Martyr,  though  the  writer 
of  the  letter  does  not  seem  to  think  that  any 
insanity  with  which  the  king  may  have  been 


160  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

afflicted  towards  the  close  of  his  life  can  have 
been  due  to  the  cause  assigned.  Indeed  in 
one  of  these  letters  he  directly  attributes  the 
king's  death  to  over-indulgence  in  hunting  and 
matrimony,  either  of  which,  as  he  says,  is  liable 
to  hasten  dissolution  in  a  man  over  sixty  years 
of  age ! 

Not  content  with  the  very  large  and  valuable 
stud  that  he  now  possessed,  Henry  found  it  neces- 
sary in  1518  to  send  "a  Bolognese  gentleman" 
out  to  Italy  to  choose  still  more  horses  for  him 
there,  special  instructions  being  given  to  him  that 
the  best  animals  he  could  find  in  Italy  must  be 
bought  at  once,  irrespective  of  cost,  and  shipped 
across  to  England  without  undue  delay — an  order 
that  the  Bolognese  gentleman  "  obeyed  implicitly 
and  to  the  king's  great  satisfaction  as  well  as  to 
his  own."  There  may  well  be  a  hidden  meaning 
in  the  last  words ! 

We  do  not  hear  anything  more  that  is  of  interest 
and  that  has  to  do  with  Henry's  stud  until  the 
year  1526,  when  we  read  that  "eighteen  of  the 
finest  of  his  horses  were  sent  by  King  Henry 
VIII.  as  a  gift  to  Francis  I."  The  reason  he 
sent  so  many  is  not  stated,  nor  are  we  told  if 
these  were  chargers,  race  horses  or  great  horses. 

After  that  the  sending  of  gift  horses  apparently 
became  an  established  custom  amongst  men  of 
rank  and  of  wealth,  as  well  as  amongst  potentates, 
so  much  so  that  persons  of  quality  vied  one  with 


HENRY'S    LOVE   OF   HUNTING       161 

another  in  sending  gifts  of  valuable    horses   to 
their  friends. 

The  last  present  of  the  sort  received  by  Henry 
VIII.  consisted  of  twenty-five  Spanish  horses 
sent  to  him  by  the  emperor,  Charles  V.,  in 

I539- 

Hunting  is  known  to  have  been  one  of  Henry's 
favourite  amusements,  and  in  a  despatch  dated 
loth  September  1519,  written  by  Giustinian 
when  Venetian  Ambassador  to  England,  we  are 
informed  that  when  Henry  hunted  he  invariably 
rode  several  horses,  or,  in  the  words  of  the  des- 
patch, "never  took  that  diversion  without  tiring 
eight  or  ten  horses,  which  he  caused  to  be 
stationed  beforehand  along  the  line  of  country 
he  meant  to  take." 

From  this  and  similar  statements  it  has  been 
inferred  that  the  hounds  Henry  hunted  with  ran 
some  artificial  line,  that  otherwise  the  horses 
could  not  have  been  stationed  "  beforehand  along 
the  line  of  country  he  meant  to  take."  The  prob- 
ability, however,  is  that  the  king's  horses  were 
stationed  at  different  points  all  over  the  country 
to  be  hunted,  for  it  seems  impossible  that  the 
king,  heavy  man  though  he  undoubtedly  was, 
could  alone  have  ridden  eight  or  ten  horses  to  a 
standstill  in  a  single  day's  hunting ! 

Indeed  in  Henry  III.'s  reign  the  men  who 
hunted  regularly  most  likely  rode  more  than 
one  horse  a  day,  just  as  most  hunting  men  do 


1 62  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

now.  At  that  period  the  sport  was,  of  course, 
very  different  from  our  modern  foxhunting,  and 
from  the  descriptions  of  it  that  have  been  handed 
down  to  us  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  plenty 
of  Henry's  nobles  hunted  not  because  they  were 
fond  of  the  sport,  but  because  they  deemed  it 
diplomatic  to  appear  to  be  wholeheartedly  as 
devoted  to  the  chase  as  the  king  himself  most 
certainly  was. 

Yet  the  king  apparently  was  not  hoodwinked 
as  easily  as  he  may  have  appeared  to  be,  or 
feigned  to  be,  for  upon  more  than  one  occasion 
he  availed  himself  of  opportunities  to  make  some 
of  his  sycophants  look  remarkably  ridiculous  in 
public. 

In  this  connection  an  interesting  little  story  is 
narrated  of  Sir  Miles  Partridge,  a  knight  who 
figured  rather  largely  in  Henry  VIII.'s  reign. 
Apparently  Sir  Miles  had  more  than  once  writhed 
in  silence  beneath  the  king's  gibes,  though  all  the 
while  impatiently  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  re- 
taliate in  a  dignified  way. 

The  opportunity  came  at  last,  when  the  king, 
in  a  merry  mood,  suggested  to  the  knight  that  he 
should  dice  with  him.  This  happened  at  about 
the  time  when  the  monasteries  were  being  dis- 
solved, and  Henry's  coffers  were  in  consequence 
unusually  well  replenished.  At  first  the  king 
won  persistently ;  then  suddenly  his  luck  deserted 
him,  with  the  result  that  in  the  end  he  lost  control 


SOME   HORSES    OF   ROMANCE       163 

of  his  temper  and  with  an  oath  shouted  at  Sir 
Miles  that  he  would  stake  upon  a  single  throw  of 
the  dice  the  great  bells  of  St  Paul's  against  a 
hundred  sovereigns. 

The  dice  were  thrown,  and  Sir  Miles  won,  and 
the  bells,  described  by  a  chronicler  of  the  period 
as  "the  greatest  peal  in  England,"  were  taken 
away  and  melted  down,  to  the  knight's  unfeigned 
delight. 

It  is  said  that  the  king  never  forgave  Sir  Miles 
Partridge  for  this.  Later  Sir  Miles  was  charged 
with  some  criminal  offence  and  imprisoned,  and  in 
1551  he  was  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill. 

In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  the 
horse  continued  to  figure  largely  in  romance,  and 
thus  it  comes  that  we  find  horses,  fictitious  and 
otherwise,  playing  important  roles  in  the  works  of 
fiction  of  the  principal  authors  of  about  that  period. 

Ariosto's  immortal  narrative  of  "  Orlando 
Furioso,"  written  towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
or  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  has 
given  us  "the  little  vigilant  horse,"  Vegliantio, 
called  Veillantif  in  the  French  romance,  where 
Orlando  appears  as  Ronald. 

Then  we  have  "  the  horse  of  the  golden  bridle," 
Orlando's  remarkable  charger,  Brigliadoro,  whose 
speed  equalled  Bajardo's  ;  also  Sacripant's  steed, 
Frontaletto,  "the  horse  with  the  little  head,"  that 
was  capable  of  doing  many  extraordinary  things. 
Sacripant,  who  was  King  of  Circassia,  and  a 


1 64  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Saracen,  held  secret  consultations  with  Fronta- 
letto,  and  the  horse  could  understand  its  master's 
every  word. 

Rinaldo's  horse,  Bajardo,  made  famous  in 
Ariosto's  celebrated  book,  was  a  bright  bay  and 
very  fast,  and  at  one  time  it  had  belonged  to 
Amadis  of  Gaul.  When  Malagigi,  the  wizard, 
found  it  in  the  cave  guarded  by  "a  dragon  of 
great  size,"  he  at  once,  at  considerable  personal 
risk,  attacked  the  dragon,  which  in  the  end  he 
succeeded  in  slaying. 

According  to  the  legend,  Bajardo  is  still  alive, 
but  under  no  circumstances  can  man  approach  it, 
nor  will  any  man  ever  do  so.  Though  Bajardo 
figures  in  several  stories,  it  occurs  first  in  "  Orlando 
Furioso." 

The  original  of  Rinaldo  was  the  son  of  the 
fourth  Marquis  d'Este,  and  Malagigi  was  Rin- 
aldo's cousin.  The  habit  of  drawing  fictitious 
characters  to  resemble  closely  living  persons,  or 
well-known  persons  of  a  previous  period,  was 
very  prevalent  among  the  writers  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  therefore  it  often  is  difficult  to  dis- 
associate the  real  from  the  fictitious  character. 

This  may  be  said  too  of  the  horses  that  we 
come  upon  in  some  of  the  better-known  of  the 
old-world  romances. 

Indeed  in  several  stories  that  could  be  named, 
the  famous  chargers  of  notable  princes  can  be 
recognised  under  several  assumed  names. 


HENRY  NOT   A   FIRST-RATE   JUDGE      165 

With  the  close  of  Henry  VIII.'s  reign — that 
is,  in  1547 — we  come  to  an  end  of  what  was 
without  doubt  a  period  in  which  the  horse  played  a 
more  conspicuous  part  than  it  had  done  since  the 
Norman  Conquest.  Upon  ascending  the  throne 
Henry  had  found  the  condition  of  horse  breeding 
in  this  country  in  rather  a  bad  way.  With  others, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  had  set  to  work  in  earnest  to 
improve,  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  the  breed  of 
English  horses,  and  though  some  of  the  statutes 
that  he  enacted — also  some  of  the  methods  to 
which  he  had  recourse  in  order  to  accomplish  his 
object — undoubtedly  were  drastic,  directly  and 
indirectly  they  helped  to  bring  about  the  improve- 
ment he  desired,  and  for  this  the  nation  still  owes 
him  a  debt  of  gratitude. 

Henry's  fondness  for  the  chase  was  equalled 
only  by  the  keen  interest  he  took  in  the  rather 
primitive  horse  racing  of  his  period,  and  trust- 
worthy choniclers  tell  us  that  one  of  his  most 
cherished  ambitions  was  to  see  established  in 
England  a  stud  of  the  fastest  horses  the  world 
had  ever  known. 

When  we  bear  in  mind  his  fondness  for  horses 
of  all  kinds  it  seems  strange  that  he  should  not 
have  been  a  first-rate  judge  of  a  horse.  Of  know- 
ledge of  a  horse's  anatomy  he  had  practically  none, 
for  which  reason  his  ignorance  in  this  respect  has 
been  contrasted  with  the  knowledge  that  Wolsey 
possessed.  Once,  indeed,  when  taxed  with  ignor- 


1 66  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

ance   upon   this  point  by  one  of  his   nobles  he 
laughed  heartily  and  admitted  the  impeachment. 

The  order,  already  referred  to,  that  horses 
should  not  be  sent  across  the  border,  or  sold  to 
Scotsmen,  almost  completely  crippled  the  horse- 
breeding  industry  north  of  the  Tweed.  True, 
some  of  the  more  powerful  of  the  Scottish  clans 
still  owned  valuable  breeding  stock,  yet  so  strictly 
were  Henry's  laws  enforced  that  the  chiefs  even 
of  those  clans  were,  with  but  few  exceptions, 
unable  to  buy  English  stallions  or  to  obtain  their 
services  at  any  time  during  Henry's  reign. 

As  a  well-known  Scottish  historian  has  aptly 
put  it,  "  Henry  VIII.  practically  ruined  Scotland  so 
far  as  that  country's  prosperity  had  to  do  with  the 
rearing  of  horses  for  the  field,  an  unfair  form  of 
oppression  that  many  Highlanders,  and  also  Low- 
landers,  have  not  yet  quite  forgotten." 

Perhaps  it  is  worth  mentioning  here  that  so  far 
as  we  are  able  to  judge  from  the  records  of  the 
early  historians  the  men  of  Scotland  have  not,  as 
a  body,  ever  proved  themselves  to  be  such  finished 
horsemen  as  the  English,  and  more  especially  the 
Irish. 

This  statement  is  not  made  in  the  least  in  a 
captious  spirit.  Why  should  it  be  ?  Probably  the 
reason  the  Scotch  are,  as  a  nation,  less  finished 
horsemen,  is  that  they  are  men  of  large  bone, 
considerable  weight  and  great  physical  strength. 

Historical  records  serve  to  show  that  no  race 


SCOTSMEN    POOR   HORSEMEN       167 

of  men  so  built  ever  has  been  particularly  famous 
for  finished  horsemanship.  For  a  man  to  be  a 
finished  horseman  need  not  necessarily  possess 
great  physical  strength,  and  the  man  of  heavy 
build  almost  invariably  finds  himself  at  a  dis- 
advantage when  on  horseback  by  comparison 
with  the  man  of  spare  frame,  small  bone  and 
"  flat "  thighs.  Though  this  is  something  of  a 
truism,  several  of  our  early  historians  apparently 
forgot  it. 

A  study  of  the  world's  history  makes  it  clear 
that  the  tribes,  races  and  nations  especially  re- 
nowned for  their  horsemanship  have  been  com- 
posed for  the  most  part  of  men  of  small  stature. 


CHAPTER  IV 

North  America  without  horses  when  Columbus  landed  —  Scarcity 
of  horses  at  the  Conquest  of  Mexico  —  Francisco  Pizarro  ;  his 
cavaliers  terrify  the  Indians—  Emperor  Charles  V.  sends  horses  to 
King  Edward  VI.—  David  Hume,  "  a  man  remarkable  for  piety, 
probity,  candour  and  integrity"  ;  his  practices  in  connection  with 
horse  racing—  Queen  Elizabeth  fond  of  racing;  condition  of  the 
Turf  during  her  reign  —  Stallions  fed  on  eggs  and  oysters  —  Lord 
Herbert  of  Cherbury's  antagonistic  attitude  towards  the  Turf- 
Some  horses  in  Shakespeare's  plays—  Performing  horse  and  its 
owner  publicly  burnt  to  death  —  Horses  trained  by  cruelty 


pHE   continent   whose  history  and  progress 

have    been   the   least    influenced    by  horses 

probably    is    Northern    America,    for    it    seems 

beyond    doubt  that  when   Columbus  discovered 

it  horses  were  unknown  there. 

How  then  did  they  come  to  be  there  in  such 
immense  herds  in  later  years  ? 

This  question  has  been  asked  many  times,  and 
the  reply  generally  is  that  the  horses  subsequently 
introduced  there  by  the  Spaniards  must  have  bred 
with  great  rapidity. 

Other  solutions  to  the  problem  that  have  been 
put  forward  are  hardly  worth  considering  seriously. 
So  enormous  did  these  herds  become,  however, 
that  down  to  half-a-century  or  so  ago  horses  in 
their  thousands  ran  wild  over  the  vast  prairies 
of  the  western  states.  At  the  present  day  such 
herds  are  practically  extinct. 

168 


SCARCITY  AT  CONQUEST  OF  MEXICO   169 


We  read  that  when,  in  1519,  the  renowned 
Hernando  Cortes  set  out  from  Cuba  to  conquer 
the  empire  of  Montezuma,  he  took  with  him 
"  sixteen  strong  and  picked  horses."  Bernal 
Diaz,  who  was  Cortes'  comrade,  apparently  was 
greatly  devoted  to  horses,  and  in  his  famous 
account  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico  he  describes 
in  detail  each  of  these  sixteen  animals,  and 
mentions  in  rather  a  quaint  way  the  principal 
characteristic  that  each  possessed. 

Seeing  that  Cortes'  force  consisted  of  some 
660  trained  men  and  about  200  Indians,  the 
sixteen  horses  of  course  in  no  way  approached 
the  number  he  would  have  liked  to  take,  and  the 
reason  he  took  so  few  is  made  clear  by  Diaz  when 
he  tells  us  that  owing  to  the  smallness  of  the  ships 
of  that  period  and  the  limited  amount  of  accommo- 
dation that  could  be  found  on  board  them,  even  in 
proportion  to  their  size,  the  difficulty  of  transport 
was  very  great. 

It  was,  indeed,  owing  chiefly  to  the  difficulty 
of  transporting  horses  to  Cuba  and  Hispaniola 
from  Spain  that  the  prices  demanded  even  for 
horses  of  inconsiderable  value  were  so  exorbitant. 
Even  it  seems  possible  that  this  scarcity  of  horses 
directly  led  to  a  campaign  that  was  expected  to 
last  for  only  a  few  months  being  prolonged  to 


1 70  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

approximately  two  years  ;  for  though  Cortes  set 
sail  with  his  little  army  in  February,  1519,  the 
subjugation  of  Mexico  was  not  completed  until 
nearly  two  years  had  elapsed. 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  but  that  the 
redoubtable  Francisco  Pizarro,  who  afterwards 
conquered  so  effectually  the  kingdom  of  the  Incas, 
was  in  Hispaniola  as  early  as  the  year  1510,  and 
he  may  have  been  there  even  before  that  date. 
When,  in  1524,  he  began  to  move  southward 
from  Panama  on  his  famous  expedition,  he 
travelled  without  horses,  and  the  attempt  to 
reach  the  realm  of  gold  proved  futile. 

His  second  expedition,  however,  was  more 
successful,  but  then  he  had  with  him  a  number 
of  horses  that  he  had  taken  the  precaution  to 
buy  before  leaving  Panama,  and  the  expedition 
numbered,  all  told,  about  160  men.  The  horses 
would  appear  to  have  been  of  the  roughest,  and 
some  of  them  in  poor  condition,  yet  Pizarro 
positively  refused  to  give  leave  for  any  of  them 
to  be  destroyed,  having  apparently  taken  to  heart 
the  lesson  he  had  received  from  the  reverse  which 
had  overtaken  him  on  his  previous  expedition 
when  he  was  without  horses. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  even  Pizarro  was 
not  prepared  for  the  extraordinary  part  that  was 
presently  to  be  played  by  those  very  animals  that 
he  had  with  him. 

For  before  he  had  advanced  very  far  it  became 


INDIANS   TERRIFIED  171 

apparent  to  him  that  the  native  Indians  had  never 
in  their  lives  before  set  eyes  upon  a  horse,  and 
thus  it  happened  that  when  presently  they  beheld 
Pizarro's  advancing  cavaliers,  their  attitude,  which 
until  then  had  been  both  threatening  and  defen- 
sive, became  almost  immediately  changed  to  one 
of  terror. 

Pizarro  was  at  first  amazed  at  this.  Then  as 
the  Indians  suddenly  and  of  one  accord  turned  and 
fled,  uttering,  as  we  are  told,  "  strange  and  shrill 
cries,"  the  truth  flashed  in  upon  him — his  mounted 
men  had  been  mistaken  by  them  for  some  kind  of 
weird  creature,  possibly  something  in  the  nature 
of  a  centaur ! 

As  one  writer  says,  "  consternation  seized  the 
Indians  when  they  saw  a  cavalier  fall  from  his 
horse,  for  they  were  not  prepared  for  the  division 
into  two  parts  of  a  creature  that  had  seemed  to 
them  to  be  but  a  single  being." 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  Henry  Bullinger  by 
Bishop  Hooper  there  is  a  statement  to  the  effect 
that  "  two  most  beautiful  Spanish  horses"  were 
received  by  Edward  VI.  from  the  emperor, 
Charles  V.,  on  26th  March,  1550,  and  that  the 
king  expressed  his  delight  at  the  gift  by  giving 
way  to  "extravagant  conduct." 

The  incident  is  of  interest  because  poor  young 
Edward  VI.  was  not  supposed  to  be  fond  of 
horses.  Yet  Camden,  the  famous  antiquary,  who 
lived  between  1551  and  1623  and  was  in  a  position 


172  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

that  should  have  enabled  him  to  speak  with 
authority,  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  lad  took 
interest  in  horses  of  all  kinds. 

Hargrove,  in  his  "  History  and  Description  of 
the  ancient  City  of  York,"  maintains  that  the 
origin  of  horse  racing  can  be  traced  back  "  even 
to  the  time  of  the  Romans,"  a  statement  apt  to 
prove  misleading  if  we  take  it  quite  literally. 

That  horse  racing  of  a  sort  can  be  traced  back 
to  a  very  remote  period  has  already  been  indi- 
cated, but,  as  we  have  also  seen,  almost  the  only 
kind  of  racing  in  which  the  Romans  took  keen 
interest  was  chariot  racing,  so  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  some  of  the  early  allusions  to  chariot 
races  may  unwittingly  have  been  confused  with 
horse  races  by  some  of  our  later  historians. 

In  a  letter  that  appeared  recently  in  a  news- 
paper published  in  Ireland,  and  that  dealt  at 
length  with  the  supposed  origin  of  horse  racing, 
the  writer  remarked  with  unconscious  humour 
that  "  undoubtedly  the  first  races  in  England 
were  held  in  Scotland." 

In  this  belief  he  was,  of  course,  mistaken, 
though  it  is  known  that  the  Scottish  people  have 
from  very  early  times  been  fond  of  horse  racing, 
and  that  the  great  race  meeting  held  in  Had- 
dington  in  1552  attracted  an  enormous  concourse 
of  spectators  from  the  Highlands  and  Lowlands 
alike. 

Later  the  Haddington  race  meeting  came  to 


DAVID    HUME  173 

be  held  annually,  the  principal  prize  run  for  being 
"  a  silver  bell  of  value." 

Rather  an  eccentric  individual,  named  David 
Hume,  was  connected  with  the  Turf  in  Scotland 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  He 
appears,  indeed,  to  have  been  quite  an  interesting 
personality.  A  resident  of  Wedderburn,  where 
he  died  in  or  about  the  year  1575 — the  early 
writers,  while  admitting  that  when  he  died  he 
must  have  been  fully  fifty  years  of  age,  yet  dis- 
agree as  to  the  exact  date  of  his  death — he  is 
especially  worthy  of  mention  because  probably 
he  was  typical  of  a  particular  stamp  of  man  that 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century 
was  in  a  great  measure  responsible  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  race  horse. 

Presumably  David  Hume  owned  property,  for 
he  is  spoken  of  as  "a  gentleman  of  good  status 
in  Berwickshire,"  and  in  later  years  his  son, 
known  as  David  Hume  of  Godscroft,  wrote  a 
book  which  became  famous  in  Scottish  literature, 
the  "  History  of  the  House  of  Douglas." 

The  elder  Hume  is  described  as  "a  man 
remarkable  for  piety,  probity,  candour  and  in- 
tegrity." How  ironical  that  description  uncon- 
sciously was  we  shall  see  in  a  moment.  The 
son,  we  are  told,  "  seldom  missed  an  oppor- 
tunity of  speaking  in  still  more  laudatory  terms 
of  his  father,"  but  Mr  J.  P.  Hore's  opinion  is  to 
the  effect  that  if  some  such  institution  as  the 


174  THE  HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

modern  Jockey  Club  had  been  in  existence  when 
Hume  the  elder  was  in  his  heyday,  that  gentle- 
man would,  in  spite  of  his  alleged  probity,  integrity, 
and  so  forth,  have  been  warned  off  the  Turf  at 
short  notice. 

For  we  read  that  "  so  great  a  master  in  the  art 
of  riding  was  he  that  he  would  often  be  beat 
to-day  and  within  eight  days  lay  a  double  wager 
on  the  same  horses  and  come  off  conqueror " 
(sic).  No  doubt  this  paragon  of  honour  has 
many  emulators  on  the  Turf  to-day,  but  the 
relatives  and  friends  of  the  latter  at  least  have 
not  the  effrontery  to  tell  us  that  such  men  are 
"strictly  just,  utterly  detesting  all  manner  of 
fraud,"  the  statement  made  again  and  again 
about  the  elder  Hume  by  his  kinsfolk. 

Elsewhere  we  learn  that  sometimes  he  ran  two 
horses  in  one  race  and  that  upon  occasions  he 
was  able  to  hoodwink  the  spectators  assembled 
into  believing  that  a  horse  had  tried  hard  to  win 
when  in  reality  it  had  barely  extended  itself. 

Hume  himself  would  talk  openly  to  his  friends 
about  the  races  he  meant  to  win,  and  apparently 
he  seldom  attempted  to  conceal  the  fact  that  some 
of  his  horses  were  meant  to  lose. 

Possibly  this  very  "  ingenuousness  "  may  have 
led  some  of  his  friends,  and  a  proportion  of  what 
we  should  to-day  call  the  general  public,  to 
believe  that  he  acted  honourably  and  always  in 
good  faith. 


ELIZABETH    FOND    OF   RACING      175 

In  justice  let  it  be  said,  however,  that  he  bred 
good  stock,  also  that  he  was  a  better  judge  of  a 
horse  than  the  bulk  of  his  contemporaries — though 
that  is  not  high  praise.  While  himself  engaged 
in  roguery  in  connection  with  racing  he  was  all 
the  time  striving  to  purify  the  Turf.  He  would, 
in  all  probability,  have  amassed  a  large  fortune 
— or  what  was  deemed  in  those  days  to  be  a  large 
fortune — had  he  been  less  addicted  to  gambling 
for  gambling's  sake,  for  it  is  certain  that  from 
first  to  last  he  won  much  money  by  laying  against 
his  own  horses  as  well  as  by  backing  some  of 
them.  The  more  amazing,  therefore,  is  it  that 
certain  writers,  even  in  comparatively  recent 
times,  should  speak  of  him  in  all  seriousness  as 
a  man  of  remarkable  integrity. 

Queen  Elizabeth  loved  the  Turf  and  apparently 
was  extremely  fond  of  horses,  while  in  her  youth 
she  must  have  been  rather  a  fine  horsewoman. 
She  kept  many  riding  horses  for  her  own  use  and 
many  more  for  the  ladies  of  her  court,  and  we 
know  that  she  was  extremely  partial  to  chestnut 
animals. 

There  is  not,  I  think,  any  trustworthy  evidence 
that  she  ever  attended  a  race  meeting  held  at 
Newmarket,  but  the  statement  made  in  at  least 
one  history  of  her  period  that  she  witnessed  races 
at  Doncaster  probably  is  accurate,  for  we  have 
proofs  that  a  racecourse  had  been  laid  down  there 
or  marked  out  by  the  year  1600.  Also  we  know 


176  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

that  Elizabeth  was  fond  of  gambling  and  that  she 
squandered  vast  sums  probably  in  connection 
with  the  turf. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  in  the 
second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  gambling 
was  a  besetting  vice.  "In  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,"  Mr  Clarkson  writes,  "racing  was 
carried  on  to  such  an  excess  as  to  injure  the 
fortunes  of  many  individuals,  private  matches 
being  then  made  between  gentlemen,  who  were 
generally  their  own  jockeys  and  tryers." 

The  descriptions  of  some  of  these  matches  are 
almost  as  quaint  as  the  account  already  given  of 
the  race  between  Blanche  Rose  and  Nicolle  Dex, 
for  the  majority  of  the  riders  were  wont  to  have 
recourse  to  the  worst  sort  of  trickery  when  they 
believed  it  might  enable  them  to  win. 

Thus  an  instance  is  recorded  of  ground  glass 
being  mixed  with  a  mare's  food,  the  ill-starred 
animal  being  in  consequence  hardly  able  to  cover 
the  course,  on  which  she  died  in  great  agony 
when  the  race  was  over. 

This  statement  is  made  without  comment,  and 
cases  somewhat  similar  are  cited  which,  if  they 
occurred  now,  would  fire  our  indignation  and  lead 
swiftly  to  retribution. 

From  this  we  may  to  some  extent  infer  that 
the  morality  of  the  Turf  in  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign  had  sunk  to  a  low  ebb.  Indeed  the 
maxim  the  majority  of  the  "  tryers,"  even  of 


THE   TURF   IN   ELIZABETH'S   REIGN        177 

the  ''gentleman  tryers,"  apparently  was — "Win 
honestly  if  possible — but  win." 

In  Elizabeth's  reign  it  was  not  customary  to 
run  important  races  for  cups.  Nearly  all  the 
"  big  "  races  were  for  "  specie,"  or  else  for  a  silver 
bell — sometimes  for  both.  Silver  bells  awarded 
as  prizes  over  three  hundred  years  ago  are,  it  is 
said,  still  to  be  seen  in  some  old  country  houses 
and  in  some  museums,  but  though  I  have  tried  I 
have  not  been  able  to  discover  the  whereabouts 
of  any  of  them. 

In  1603  the  Earl  of  Essex  offered  a  snaffle 
made  of  gold  as  a  prize  to  be  run  for  at  a  race 
meeting  held  near  Salisbury,  and  at  about  the 
same  time  it  was  proposed  that  "  race  gatherings" 
should  take  place  near  Salisbury  at  fixed  intervals. 

The  latter  suggestion,  though  strongly  resented 
by  "a  number  of  Salisbury  gentlemen"  who 
presumably  were  under  the  impression  that  to 
establish  a  race  course  near  their  town  must 
necessarily  prove  demoralising  to  the  townsmen, 
was  eventually  adopted,  the  queen  having,  so  it 
was  said,  brought  her  influence  to  bear  in  favour 
of  the  proposal. 

We  may  approximately  estimate  the  value  of 
horses  of  a  particular  stamp  at  about  this  time 
from  an  inventory  that  was  drawn  up  in  1572  of 
the  effects  of  the  second  Earl  of  Cumberland  of 
Skipton  Castle. 

Therein  we  find  a  stoned  horse  called  Young 


178  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Mark  Antony  valued  at  ,£16;  another  horse, 
Grey  Clyfford,  at  £11  :  Whyte  Dacre,  at  £io\ 
Sorrell  Tempest,  £4.  ;  White  Tempest  and  Baye 
Tempest,  each  at  ^5  ;  Baye  Myddleton,  £i,  and 
so  on.  Some  mares  and  their  followers  are  also 
mentioned,  and  lastly  ten  cart  horses. 

Many  fictitious  stories  have  been  woven  around 
Suleiman,  the  favourite  charger  of  the  Earl  of 
Essex,  but  they  are  not  of  sufficient  interest  to 
place  on  record.  In  Elizabeth's  reign  a  number 
of  barbs,  also  many  Spanish  horses  descended 
from  barbs,  were  obtained  from  captured  foreign 
vessels,  and  these  the  queen  looked  upon  for  the 
most  part  as  her  personal  perquisites. 

Consequently  about  the  middle  of  her  reign  an 
order  was  issued  that  all  captured  horses  must 
without  exception  be  sent  direct  to  the  queen, 
the  infliction  of  a  severe  penalty  being  threatened 
if  the  order  should  be  disregarded.  A  number 
of  these  animals  were  subsequently  sent  as  gifts 
to  the  more  faithful  of  her  nobles,  and  all  the 
recipients  sent  in  return  "expressions  of  ex- 
tremest  gratitude." 

There  is  a  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  what 
constituted  "the  staple  article  of  food"  of  horses 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  though  of  course  hay 
was  used  largely.  Bishop  Hall  throws  some 
light  upon  the  subject  when  he  mentions  that 
thoroughbred  stallions  when  largely  in  demand 
were  given  eggs  and  oysters. 


LORD    CHERBURY'S   ANTAGONISM     179 

Reference  to  eggs  and  oysters  in  this  con- 
nection is  made  elsewhere,  so  we  may  conclude 
that  the  custom  of  thus  feeding  stallions  was 
not  an  uncommon  one,  at  any  rate  in  the  time 
of  Elizabeth. 

Horse  bread  has  already  been  mentioned,  but 
I  have  not  come  upon  any  direct  allusion  to  oats 
being  used  to  feed  horses  upon  at  this  period. 

Several  of  the  writers  in  Elizabeth's  reign 
openly  bemoaned  the  development  of  horse 
racing,  urging  that  trouble  and  disaster  followed 
in  its  train,  but  their  moans  were  for  the  most 
part  stifled  in  the  clamour  of  general  approbation. 

Among  those  who  spoke  strongly  in  condemna- 
tion of  horse  racing  was  the  rather  eccentric 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury.  Late  in  life  he 
wrote — to  the  amusement  of  his  friends  and 
relatives — a  complete  history  of  his  own  career, 
in  which  volume  he  again  reverts  to  his  pet 
aversion  by  declaring  that  among  the  exercises 
of  which  he  disapproved  were  "the  riding  of 
running  horses,  there  being  much  cheating  in  that 
kind." 

Hunting  also  he  clearly  objected  to,  for  he  goes 
on  to  tell  his  readers  that  he  does  not  like  hunt- 
ing horses,  "that  exercise  taking  up  more  time 
than  can  be  spared  for  a  man  studious  to  get 
knowledge." 

From  other  of  his  remarks  it  becomes  obvious 
that  some  three  centuries  ago  the  men  who 


180  THE  HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

devoted  the  better  part  of  their  lives  to  the  sport 
of  hunting  became  to  such  a  degree  engrossed 
in  it  that  in  time  they  could  hardly  be  brought  to 
talk,  or  indeed  to  think,  of  anything  else  whatever. 

That  the  same  can  be  said  with  truth  of  a 
proportion  of  our  modern  hunting  men  is  well 
known,  and  the  question  is  asked  to-day,  as  it 
was  asked  three  hundred  or  more  years  ago — 
How  comes  it  that  over-indulgence  in  the 
chase  has  this  odd  effect  upon  us,  whereas  over- 
indulgence in  other  forms  of  sport  but  seldom 
makes  its  votaries  shallow-minded  to  the  same 
degree  ? 

Indeed  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  eccentric  as 
he  admittedly  was,  made  many  sensible  observa- 
tions upon  this  and  kindred  topics  ;  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  in  decrying  the  then  increasing 
tendency  of  men  and  women  of  what  were  looked 
upon  as  the  educated  classes  to  squander  their 
fortunes,  he  voiced  the  views  held  by  a  vast 
proportion  of  the  thinking  population  of  this 
country. 

A  contemporary  of  Lord  Herbert's  wrote 
practically  to  the  same  effect.  His  name  was 
Burton,  and  he  reached  his  heyday  about  the 
time  that  Shakespeare's  era  was  drawing  to  a 
close.  The  diatribe  he  launched  against  the 
increasing  spread  of  gambling  upon  the  Turf  has 
probably  never  been  surpassed  in  vigour. 

In  one  of  his  mildest  passages  he  pronounces 


HORSES  IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS     181 

horse  races  to  be  "the  disport  of  great  men,  and 
good  in  themselves,  though  many  gentlemen  by 
such  means  gallop  quite  out  of  their  fortunes." 

Shakespeare  himself,  though  rather  fond  of 
horses,  was  hardly  less  opposed  to  the  practice 
of  heavy  betting.  His  description  of  a  thorough- 
bred's points  is  good  : 

"  Round-hoof  d,  short-jointed,  fetlocks  shag  and  long, 
Broad  breast,  full  eye,  small  head,  and  nostrils  wide, 
High  crest,  short  ears,  straight  legs,  and  passing  strong, 
Thin  mane,  thick  tail,  broad  buttock,  tender  hide." 

It  would  take  long,  also  it  is  unnecessary,  to 
describe  at  length  all  the  horses  of  which  Shake- 
speare speaks  in  his  plays.  According  to  a 
recent  writer,  Oliver's  steed,  Ferrant  d'Espagne, 
or  "Spanish  traveller,"  has  been  "bastardised." 
What  the  writer  means  is,  I  think,  that  the  horse 
has  been  introduced  into  works  of  fiction  without 
acknowledgment. 

Such  certainly  is  the  case,  and  so  greatly  has 
the  animal  been  distorted  in  some  instances  that 
only  with  difficulty  is  it  recognisable. 

In  Shakespeare's  time — that  is  to  say  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  and  in  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  centuries — the  barbary  horse 
clearly  was  highly  esteemed,  for  it  is  referred  to 
frequently  in  books  and  memoirs  which  bear  upon 
that  period. 

Shakespeare  speaks  several  times  of  roan  horses 


1 82  THE   HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

too,  as  for  instance  in  /  Henry  IV.,  where  we 
come  upon  the  sentence,  "Give  the  roan  horse 
a  drench."  To  bay  horses  he  makes  allusion 
in  King  Lear,  in  Timon,  and  elsewhere,  and 
in  Timon  he  refers  also  to  a  team  of  white 
horses.  These  bare  allusions  make  dry  reading, 
but  they  are  instructive  and  of  interest  in 
connection  with  the  story  of  the  part  the  horse 
played  in  British  history. 

More  especially  is  this  so  when  we  again  bear 
in  mind  what  has  already  been  stated  at  length 
in  the  introductory  note  to  this  book,  and  that  is 
the  enormous  extent  to  which  automobilism  has 
increased  in  this  country,  and  for  that  matter  the 
world  over,  since  the  introduction  of  the  petrol 
motor,  which  makes  it  obvious  that  the  horse's 
reign  must  be  fast  drawing  to  a  close. 


That  we  have,  as  a  nation,  already  to  a  great 
extent  lost  much  of  the  interest  we  took  only  a 
few  years  ago  in  horses,  and  in  all  that  appertains 
to  them,  is,  I  think,  beyond  dispute.  The  number 
of  men  who  keep  what  must  be  termed  "pleasure  " 
horses  decreases  year  by  year,  almost  month  by 
month,  and  indeed  it  would  be  possible  to  name 
at  off-hand  between  fifty  and  sixty  well-known 
men  and  women  fond  of  sport  who,  within  the  last 
six  months  or  so,  have  sold  their  carriages  and 


HORSES  IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS     183 

all  their  harness  horses,  and  whose  stables  now 
contain  only  hunters,  while  in  other  cases  even 
the  hunters  have  been  got  rid  of  in  order  to  make 
way  for  automobiles. 

And  yet,  bemoan  the  change  though  we  may, 
the  gradual  transition  is  not  uninteresting  to 
study.  History  in  the  past  has  for  centuries 
been  both  directly  and  indirectly  affected  by  the 
horses  and  horsemanship  of  the  various  races  the 
world  over.  History  in  the  future  is  going  to  be 
similarly  affected  by  motor  power  applied  in  a 
variety  of  ways. 

And  yet,  who  knows  ?  Perhaps  even  half-a- 
century  hence,  when  the  horse  will  to  all  intents 
be  extinct  in  England,  save  where  he  is  kept  for 
racing  and  in  some  instances  for  hunting  purposes, 
interest  may  still  be  taken  in  Shakespeare's  plays 
and  therefore  in  the  stories  of  such  whimsical 
characters  as  the  self-satisfied,  conceited  and 
generally  grotesque  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  and 
his  celebrated  grey  steed,  Capilet,  that  we  find 
portrayed  so  admirably  in  Twelfth  Night ;  in 
Lord  Lafeu  of  Alls  Well  that  Ends  Well 
and  his  curious  bay  horse,  Curtal,  a  name  that 
means  literally  "the  cropped  one";  and  in  Cut, 
the  carrier's  horse  of  King  Henry  IV.,  —  to 
name  but  a  few  of  Shakespeare's  creations  that 
surely  must  live  on  for  ever. 

With  regard  to  barb  horses,  of  which  so 
much  has  been  said  and  written,  the  probability 


184  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

would  seem  to  be  that  "  barbed "  is  in  reality 
a  corrupt  form  of  the  word  "barded"  that 
came  originally  from  the  French,  bardd — that  is 
to  say,  caparisoned — and  therefore  it  may  signify 
indirectly  a  horse  in  armour.  Hence  the  mean- 
ing probably  intended  by  Shakespeare  to  be 
conveyed  in  the  following  lines  in  King  Richard 
III.  :— 

"  And  now — instead  of  mounting  barbed  steeds, 
To  fright  the  souls  of  fearful  adversaries, — 
He  capers  nimbly  in  a  lady's  chamber, 
To  the  lascivious  pleasing  of  a  lute." 

Shakespeare  and  Bishop  Hall,  in  addition  to 
one  or  two  other  writers,  speak  of  the  horse, 
Marocco,  which  lived  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  and 
belonged  to  a  man  named  Banks,  or  Bankes,  a 
brother  of  the  first  keeper  of  the  New  Warren. 

Foaled,  so  far  as  one  can  gather,  at  New- 
market, Marocco  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the 
cleverest  of  the  few  horses  that  at  that  period 
had  been  trained  to  perform  at  fairs,  and  in  shows 
and  circuses. 

Some  of  the  feats  performed  by  it  are  described 
at  length  in  the  old  records,  and  though  we  read 
that  in  those  days  such  feats  were  deemed 
"marvellous  past  belief,"  we  should  smile  if 
anybody  were  to-day  to  express  amazement  at 
seeing  a  circus  horse  perform  tricks  so  simple. 

That  Marocco  should  be  able  to  walk  upright 
upon  his  hind  legs,  for  instance,  was  considered 


HORSE   AND    OWNER   BURNT       185 

so  astounding  that  questions  were  asked  in  all 
seriousness  as  to  whether  supernatural  aid  of  some 
kind  had  not  been  invoked ! 

In  addition  to  this,  Marocco  would  rear,  kneel, 
sit,  or  lie  down,  when  told  to  do  so,  and  he  would 
indicate  amongst  the  spectators  any  individual 
selected  by  his  trainer. 

What  was  deemed  most  remarkable  of  all, 
however,  was  a  performance  in  which  Marocco 
walked  backwards,  "the  while  turning  in  circles," 
when  Banks  ordered  him  to  do  so. 

We  are  told  that  upon  witnessing  this  perform- 
ance a  proportion  of  the  audience  was  so  deeply 
affected  that  several  people  dared  not  remain. 
Consequently  one  is  less  surprised  at  reading 
that  when,  later,  Banks  and  his  pupil  gave  a  per- 
formance in  Rome,  both  man  and  horse  were 
pronounced  to  be  in  league  with  the  devil  and 
ordered  to  be  publicly  burnt  as  magicians,  which 
monstrous  sentence  was  duly  carried  out. 

In  justice  let  it  be  said  that  this  act  of  barbarity 
— the  direct  outcome  of  the  pitiable  ignorance  of 
the  age — created  intense  indignation  in  England, 
while  in  Italy  it  stirred  up  a  strong  feeling  of 
resentment. 

Attempts  were  made  later  to  create  the  im- 
pression that  political  wirepullers  had  been  at 
work,  and  that  man  and  horse  had  been  sacrificed 
expressly  to  make  bad  blood  between  the  British 
Court  and  the  Vatican,  if  not  between  England 


186  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

and  Italy,  but  there  is  no  reason  for  believing  that 
the  agitators  achieved  their  purpose. 

Nor,  indeed,  is  it  certain  that  Banks'  death 
sentence  was  pronounced  by  the  Pope,  or  by  his 
order.  That  the  man  had  come  to  be  looked 
upon  as  a  magician,  however,  in  every  part  of 
Italy  where  his  horse  had  been  exhibited,  ap- 
parently is  beyond  dispute. 

Though  strolling  players  of  many  sorts  were, 
as  we  know,  plentiful  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  it 
seems  more  than  likely  that  the  exhibition  given 
by  Marocco  may  directly  have  inaugurated  in 
England  the  practice  of  training  animals  to  per- 
form tricks  of  the  same  sort  for  public  shows. 

Certainly  we  hear  soon  after  Marocco's  tragic 
end  that  exhibitions  of  performing  animals  were 
advertised  to  take  place  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  and  from  that  time  onward  incidental 
allusions  to  entertainments  of  the  kind  that  we 
to-day  call  circuses  are  to  be  found  in  some  of  the 
old  books. 

There  mention  is  made  of  the  methods  em- 
ployed in  order  to  train  the  animals  to  their 
owners'  satisfaction,  methods  barbarous  enough, 
in  all  conscience.  Yet  none  took  exception  to 
them.  For  the  tendency  of  the  age,  three 
centuries  ago,  and  down  probably  to  a  much  later 
period,  was  one  of  cruelty.  The  literature  of 
the  last  three  hundred  years  makes  that  but  too 
apparent. 


CHAPTER  V 

King  Henry  VIII.  and  Queen  Elizabeth  passionately  fond  of 
hunting — John  Selwyn's  remarkable  feat  in  the  hunting  field ;  the 
monument  at  Walton-on-Thames — Don  Quixote  and  his  steed, 
Rosinante  ;  Peter  of  Provence's  wooden  horse,  Babieca  ;  Clavileno 
and  the  Cid's  horse — Mary  Queen  of  Scots'  favourite  horses — 
Queen  Elizabeth's  retinue  of  2400  horses — Arundel,  Aquiline, 
Brigadore — The  horses  of  Anatolia  and  Syria — Sir  Robert  Carey's 
historic  ride  from  London  to  Edinburgh  in  sixty  hours — The 
horses  of  Napoleon  I. 

CO  far  as  hunting  was  concerned,  Henry  VIII. 
**  was,  as  we  know,  a  keen  sportsman,  and  Queen 
Elizabeth  would  appear  to  have  been  almost  an 
equally  enthusiastic  sportsman.  Passionately 
devoted  to  the  chase,  nothing  gave  her  greater 
pleasure  than  to  see  "  the  quarry  broken  up  before 
her."  Statements  to  this  effect  are  to  be  found 
in  the  works  of  three  trustworthy  writers  at  least, 
so  we  may  take  it  that  the  records  are  approxi- 
mately accurate.  The  queen  "  loved  to  be  on 
horseback  for  its  own  sake,"  and  was  fond  of 
open  air  at  all  times. 

It  is  in  connection  with  Elizabeth's  partiality 
for  the  chase  that  the  story  is  told  of  a  man  named 
John  Selwyn,  for  many  years  under  keeper  of 
the  park  at  Oaklands,  in  Surrey,  where  some  of 
the  queen's  hunters  were  usually  stabled  during 
the  autumn  and  winter. 
187 


i88  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Selwyn  must  in  several  ways  have  been  a  re- 
markable character,  but  it  is  with  his  horseman- 
ship only  that  we  have  here  to  deal.  On  the 
occasion,  then,  of  a  great  stag  hunt  which  the 
queen  had  arranged  should  take  place  in  the 
park  at  Oaklands,  Selwyn  was  "chief  in  attend- 
ance " — in  other  words,  huntsman. 

Suddenly,  as  we  are  told,  a  stag  was  started. 

When  it  had  been  hunted  only  a  short  time,  a 
fear  was  expressed  by  the  queen  that  it  would 
escape,  "the  animal  having  proved  of  such  un- 
usual swiftness  that  it  was  feared  the  hounds 
would  not  be  able  to  overtake  it." 

Determined  that  this  should  not  happen,  "  Sel- 
wyn pressed  spurs  to  his  horse,  and  galloping  at 
an  angle,  and  sideways,"  succeeded  in  coming 
alongside  the  stag  as  it  was  about  to  turn  off 
abruptly. 

At  once  the  enthusiasm  and  excitement  of  the 
spectators,  especially  of  the  queen,  became  in- 
tense ;  nor  did  it  abate  when  they  saw  Selwyn, 
still  galloping  at  top  speed,  neck  and  neck  with 
the  stag,  suddenly  vault  right  off  his  horse's 
back  on  to  the  stag's,  "  where  he  kept  his  seat 
gracefully  in  spite  of  every  effort  of  the  affrighted 
beast  to  throw  him  off." 

Thus  he  galloped  on  for  some  yards,  the  queen 
and  all  the  spectators  wondering  what  he  would 
do  next.  They  were  not  kept  long  in  suspense. 
Of  a  sudden  Selwyn  swiftly  but  calmly  drew 


DON   QUIXOTE   AND   HIS    STEED    189 

out  his  hunting  knife.  Then  he  began  to  prod 
the  animal  with  its  point,  first  on  one  side  of  its 
neck,  then  on  the  other,  until  at  last  he  succeeded 
in  forcing  the  stag  to  gallop  round  to  a  point 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  very  spot  where  the 
queen  sat  waiting. 

At  last,  when  the  animal  was  very  near  the 
queen,  its  rider  suddenly  plunged  his  knife  deep 
into  its  throat,  "so  that  the  blood  spurted  out  and 
the  beast  fell  dead  just  by  her  feet." 

This  display  is  said  to  have  delighted  the  queen 
so  greatly  that  she  soon  afterwards  granted 
Selwyn  several  favours,  and  on  the  monument 
still  to  be  seen  at  Walton- on -Thames  he  is 
portrayed  in  the  act  of  stabbing,  in  the  manner 
described,  the  stag  slaughtered  on  that  memorable 
occasion.  Selwyn  died  on  27th  March,  1587. 


Of  the  famous  horses  of  fiction  and  romance 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  one  or 
two  more  must  be  mentioned.  Don  Quixote's 
immortal  squire,  Sancho  Panza,  who,  it  will  be 
remembered,  rode  upon  an  ass  named  Dapple, 
was  Governor  of  Barataria. 

Though  endowed  with  common  sense,  and 
though  his  proverbs  have  become  historical,  he 
was  wholly  devoid  of  what  is  sometimes  called 
"spirituality." 


1 90  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Nevertheless  Don  Quixote  and  his  horse, 
Rosinante — a  name  that  means  literally  "  for- 
merly a  hack  " — came  gradually  to  be  renowned 
the  world  over. 

To  this  day,  indeed,  "a  perfect  Rosinante"  is 
the  comment  not  infrequently  passed  upon  a 
horse  that  is  mostly  skin  and  bone. 

Peter  of  Provence's  wooden  horse,  Babieca, 
is  another  " creature"  whose  name  must  not  be 
omitted. 

"This  very  day,"  we  read  in  Don  Quixote, 
"  may  be  seen  in  the  King's  armoury  the  identi- 
cal peg  with  which  Peter  of  Provence  turned  his 
wooden  horse  which  carried  him  through  the 
air.  It  is  rather  bigger  than  the  pole  of  a  coach, 
and  stands  near  Babieca's  saddle." 

Don  Quixote  himself  rode  astride  the  wooden 
horse,  Clavileno,  on  the  occasion  when  he  wished 
to  disenchant  the  Infanta  Antonomasia  and  her 
husband  shut  up  in  the  tomb  of  Queen  Maguncia, 
of  Candaya,  and  Peter  of  Provence  rode  it  when 
he  made  off  with  beautiful  Magalona. 

Merlin  was  the  name  of  its  maker,  and  the 
horse  was  so  constructed  that  it  could  be  governed 
by  turning  a  wooden  peg  in  its  forehead.  The 
name  means  " wooden  peg."  A  comprehensive 
description  of  these  incidents  may  be  found  in 
the  fourth  and  fifth  chapters  of  the  third  book  of 
"  Don  Quixote,"  but  the  description  is  not  of 
sufficient  interest  to  be  quoted  here. 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS'  HORSES     191 

The  story  of  the  Cid's  horse,  to  date  back  to  an 
earlier  century,  is  almost  as  well  known  as  the 
story  of  Rosinante.  The  Cid's  horse  died  some 
two  and  a  half  years  after  its  master's  death,  and 
during  the  whole  of  that  period  none  rode  it,  the 
order  having  gone  forth  that  under  no  circum- 
stances was  anybody  to  mount  the  animal.  At 
its  death  its  body  was  buried  near  the  gate  of 
the  monastery  at  Valencia,  two  trees  being 
planted  close  to  the  grave  to  mark  its  where- 
abouts. 

According  to  the  popular  legend,  the  horse 
acquired  its  name  through  Rodrigo's  having, 
when  told  in  his  youth  that  he  might  select  a 
horse,  chosen  an  almost  valueless  colt.  His 
godfather,  annoyed  at  this  display  of  ignorance, 
at  once  nicknamed  the  lad  "the  dolt,"  which 
nickname  Rodrigo  presently  conferred  upon  the 
horse  itself.  Literally,  however,  "  Cid"  is  Arabic 
for  "lord." 


Among  the  few  traits  in  the  character  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  that  have  not  formed  subjects  for 
controversy  among  the  many  biographers  of  that 
ill-starred  sovereign,  her  undoubted  fondness  for 
animals  stands  out  prominently. 

From  first  to  last  I  have  read  many  bio- 
graphies of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and  it  is 


192  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

remarkable  that  no  two  coincide  consistently  in 
their  statements,  from  which  we  are  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  majority  of  such  works  have 
been  produced  by  writers  who  either  were  bigoted 
or  deeply  prejudiced,  or  else  who  had  some  private 
axe  to  grind. 

With  regard  to  Mary's  horses,  her  two  chief 
favourites  would  appear  to  have  been  Rosabelle 
— the  animal  at  one  time  worshipped  by  a  propor- 
tion of  the  body  of  minor  poets  ! — and  Agnes, 
called  after  Agnes  of  Dunbar,  a  countess  in  her 
own  right.  This  palfrey — almost  all  the  horses 
of  the  period  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  are  spoken 
of  as  "  palfreys  " — apparently  came  as  a  gift  from 
her  brother,  Moray,  and  though  it  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  a  steed  of  exceptional  quality  she 
was  extraordinarily  fond  of  it,  We  find  it  referred 
to  occasionally  as  Black  Agnes. 

Then,  though  all  the  evidence  obtainable  tends 
to  convey  the  impression  that  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots  must  have  been  a  clever  horsewoman,  she 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  very  fond  of 
hunting,  in  consequence  of  which  two  at  least  of 
her  biographers  go  so  far  as  to  hint  that  her 
alleged  distaste  for  the  chase  tended  in  a  measure 
to  increase  Elizabeth's  hostility  towards  her. 

From  what  early  historians  tell  us,  Mary 
probably  looked  far  better  on  a  horse  than 
Elizabeth  ever  did — the  slimness  alone  of  Mary's 
figure  by  contrast  with  Elizabeth's  may  have 


QUEEN   ELIZABETH'S   RETINUE     19 j 

been  in  a  measure  responsible  for  this — and  the 
knowledge  must  have  vexed  Elizabeth,  who 
took  particular  pride  in  her  riding  and  was 
desirous  above  many  other  things  to  be  deemed 
a  finished  horsewoman.  How  vast  a  number  of 
horses  must  have  been  owned  by  the  nobles  and 
by  other  persons  of  wealth  who  dwelt  scattered 
over  the  whole  of  England  may  be  gathered  from 
the  statement  of  Ralph  Holinshed  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  alone  required,  when  she  travelled, 
some  2400  animals,  almost  all  of  which  had  to 
be  provided  by  residents  in  the  districts  in  which 
she  moved. 

The  majority  of  these  horses  were  employed  to 
drag  the  great  carts  which  contained  the  queen's 
baggage,  yet  we  are  told  that  "  the  ancient  use 
of  somers  and  sumpter  horses "  having  been 
"  utterly  relinquished,  causeth  the  trains  of  our 
princes  in  their  progresses  to  show  far  less 
than  those  of  the  kings  of  other  nations." 

Naturally  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
weight  of  the  baggage  of  persons  of  rank  in  the 
sixteenth  century  was  excessive,  especially  when 
it  was  added  to  the  weight  of  the  clumsy  carts 
that  were  used  for  the  conveyance  of  such  bag- 
gage, so  that  four,  six  and  even  more  horses 
were  often  enough  harnessed  to  a  single  cart 
when  it  was  fully  loaded. 

Then,  too,  the  roads  were  for  the  most  part  in 
so  bad  a  state  of  repair — many  of  them  could  not, 

N 


i94  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

properly  speaking,  be  called   roads  at  all — that 
frequent  changes  of  horses  were  necessary. 


In  Drayton's  well-known  "Polyolbion  "  we  have 
a  horse  that  is  very  famous  in  romance.  Arundel 
by  name — a  name  that  is  said  to  have  been 
originally  a  corruption  of  the  French  word, 
hirondelle — it  was  "  swifter  than  the  swiftest 
swallow."  This  horse  belonged  to  Bevis  of 
Southampton,  "  the  remarkable  knight,"  and 
apparently  it  had  as  many  good  points  as  any 
animal  can  possess.  In  the  sixteenth  century 
almost  every  horse  of  note  actually  living,  or  in 
romance,  took  its  name  from  one  or  other  of  its 
chief  characteristics.  Thus  in  Tasso's  "  Jerusalem 
Delivered"  we  find  Raymond's  steed,  Aquiline, 
that  was  bred  on  the  banks  of  the  Tagus, 
particularly  remarkable  for  what  we  should  to- 
day call  a  Roman  nose. 

Aquiline  figures  largely  in  "  Jerusalem  De- 
livered," and  Raymond,  who  was  Count  of  Tou- 
louse and  commander  of  some  4000  infantry,  and 
who,  in  addition,  was  remarkable  for  his  wisdom 
and  coolness  in  debate,  is  shown  to  have  owed 
a  measure  of  his  success  to  Aquiline's  phenomenal 
sagacity.  Indeed  Aquiline  probably  saved  him 
from  destruction  upon  more  than  one  occasion. 

We  come  upon  other  horses  in  several  por- 


BRIG  AD  ORE  195 

tions  of  "Jerusalem  Delivered,"  especially  in 
connection  with  the  slaying  by  Raymond  of 
Aladine,  the  cruel  old  king.  The  stirring  de- 
scription of  this  incident,  and  of  the  planting  of 
the  Christian  standard  upon  the  tower  of  David 
by  Raymond,  is  to  be  found  in  the  twentieth 
book  ;  but  as  we  know  that  the  Holy  Land  was 
being  ruled  by  the  Caliph  of  Egypt  at  the  very 
time  Raymond  is  supposed  to  have  been  attacking 
King  Aladine,  it  at  once  becomes  obvious  that 
the  narrative  must  have  been  fictitious. 


"The   Faerie    Queene"   is  another  classic   in 
which   we   find    interesting   allusions    to    horses, 
mostly  the  horses  of  romance. 

One  of  the  best  known  of  these  animals  is 
Brigadore,  called  sometimes  Brigliadore,  which 
belonged  to  Sir  Guyon,  and  was  remarkable  for 
a  black  mark  in  its  mouth,  in  shape  like  a  horse- 
shoe. 

Sir  Guyon,  who  impersonated  Temperance  or 
Self-Government,  was  the  companion  of  Prudence, 
and  he  alludes  several  times  to  Brigadore.  His 
fame,  as  most  scholars  will  remember,  rests  in 
a  great  measure  upon  his  destruction  of  the 
enchantress,  Acrasia,  in  the  bower  called  the 
Bower  of  Bliss,  which  was  situated  in  the  Wander- 
ing Island. 


196  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

The  name  Acrasia  means  self-indulgence, 
and  this  witch  was  particularly  dreaded  because 
of  her  partiality  for  transforming  her  lovers 
into  monstrous  shapes  and  then  keeping  them 
captive. 

The  story  of  Sir  Guyon's  stealthy  approach 
while  Acrasia  lay  unsuspectingly  in  her  bower, 
and  of  the  way  in  which  he  succeeded  in  throwing 
a  net  over  her,  subsequently  in  binding  her  firmly 
in  chains  of  adamant,  then  in  breaking  down  "her 
accursed  bower  "  and  burning  it  to  ashes,  is  too 
well  known  to  need  description  here,  and  of  course 
it  has  no  direct  bearing  upon  Brigadore. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge,  the  horses  of  Anatolia 
and  Syria  must  have  been  well  known  in  Europe 
by  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
though  one  or  two  writers  aver  that  they  did  not 
come  over  until  later. 

An  artist  who  died  about  the  year  1603,  and 
whose  name  was  Stradamus,  produced,  not  long 
before  his  death,  a  series  of  drawings,  and  a  set 
of  these  was  subsequently  issued  under  the  title, 
"  Equile  Johannis  Ducis  Austriaci,"  which  means, 
"  The  Stable  of  Don  John  of  Austria." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection 
that  practically  all  the  horses  and  mares  im- 
ported between  the  year  1660  and  the  year  1685 
came  from  Smyrna,  though  the  renowned  Darley 
Arabian  and  several  more  came  from  Aleppo. 

This  is  of  particular  importance  in  relation  to 


SIR  ROBERT  CAREY'S   RIDE         197 

the  records  of  the  horse  in  England's  history,  for 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  great  part  of  our 
thoroughbred  racing  stock  is  descended  from 
these  very  early  importations. 


That  remarkable  feats  of  horsemanship  were 
performed  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  is  beyond 
dispute,  but  unfortunately  the  particulars  obtain- 
able are  extremely  meagre. 

Of  Sir  Robert  Carey's  historic  ride  upon  the 
death  of  the  queen,  details  worth  recording  are 
given.  No  sooner  had  the  queen  breathed  her  last, 
we  are  told,  than  Sir  Robert  Carey,  notorious  syco- 
phant that  he  was,  who  for  days  and  nights  had 
been  loitering  about  the  queen's  bed-chamber  and 
displaying  the  keenest  anxiety  as  to  her  condition, 
set  off  on  horseback  to  convey  to  the  heir,  King 
James,  the  news  of  her  death. 

"  So  great  was  his  desire  to  bring  the  news 
to  King  James  before  that  monarch  had  heard  it 
from  any  other  source,"  we  read,  "that  with  the 
lamentations  of  the  dead  queen's  women  still 
ringing  in  his  ears  he  left  the  bedside  of  his 
kinswoman  and  benefactress  and  started  to 
announce  the  important  tidings  to  King  James, 
an  act  quite  as  indelicate  as  it  was  wholly  un- 
authorised." 

Sir  Robert's  indelicacy,  or  alleged  indelicacy, 


198  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

however,  is  no  concern  of  ours.  As  a  feat  of 
endurance,  his  ride  was  truly  an  extraordinary 
one,  for  he  actually  galloped  the  whole  distance 
from  London  to  Edinburgh,  about  400  miles,  in 
less  than  sixty  hours,  though  during  the  journey 
he  had  at  least  one  severe  fall. 

How  many  horses  he  rode  I  have  not  been 
able  to  ascertain,  but  that  he  had  made  in  advance 
full  preparations  for  this  journey  is  more  than 
likely,  as  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  he  had  covered 
the  first  1 60  miles  by  nightfall  on  the  day  after  he 
started.  The  exact  time  at  which  he  set  out 
we  are  not  told. 

What  made  the  feat  more  wonderful  still  was 
the  condition  of  nearly  all  the  roads  in  England 
during  Elizabeth's  reign,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Roman  roads  and  a  few  besides,  some 
north  of  Doncaster  being  really  little  more  than 
tracks. 

That  Sir  Robert  Carey  was  well  repaid  for  his 
enterprise  may  be  gathered  from  the  statement 
that  King  James  I.  "  rewarded  him  for  being  the 
first  to  bring  him  the  glad  news,  by  granting  him 
signal  favours." 


From  about  this  period  onward  the  horse  may 
be  said  to  have  entered  upon  the  third  phase  of 
its  career  in  the  history  of  all  nations,  but  more 


THIRD    PHASE   OF   ITS    CAREER     199 

especially  in  the  history  of  our  own  nation.  For, 
as  we  have  seen,  from  very  early  times  down  to 
the  period  of  the  Norman  Conquest  the  nations 
that  had  not  horses  had  almost  without  exception 
been  forced  to  take  a  secondary  place  in  the 
world's  progress. 

From  the  period  of  the  Norman  Conquest  down 
to  the  beginning  of  the  accession  of  the  House  of 
Stuart — indeed,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  almost 
down  to  the  period  of  the  Commonwealth — the 
improvement  and  development  of  the  horse  as  an 
''arm"  in  warfare  had  gone  practically  hand  in 
hand  with  the  improvement  in  the  training  of  men 
to  fight  in  battle.  And  from  then  onward,  that 
is  to  say  from  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  the 
Stuarts  and  the  Commonwealth,  down  to  the 
present  day,  the  horse  has  been  connected  with 
history  in  the  capacity  of  charger  or  war  horse, 
hunter  or  pleasure  horse,  and  thoroughbred  or 
race  horse. 

Let  me  state  at  once,  then,  that  it  is  not  my 
intention  to  describe  at  length,  or  even  to  mention 
by  name,  all  the  more  or  less  famous  horses  that 
have  been  owned  by  the  more  prominent  or  dis- 
tinguished men  at  any  time  within  the  last  three 
hundred  years,  for  such  a  collection  of  names,  or 
of  descriptions,  would  not  be  likely  to  prove  of  in- 
terest to  the  modern  reader.  In  addition  com- 
paratively few  of  the  records  concerning  these 
animals  bear  the  impress  of  truth. 


200  THE   HORSE   IN    HISTORY 

As  we  come  to  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
and  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  centuries 
historical  records  increase  enormously  in  volume, 
so  that  now  we  find  ourselves  confronted  by  a 
mass  of  reports,  many  of  which  bear  directly 
upon  horses  that  are  of  no  interest  whatever, 
though  they  may  have  belonged  to  famous  men 
whose  names  are  still  household  words. 

Thus  in  a  single  history  of  Napoleon  I.  we 
find  two  pages  of  descriptive  matter  to  do  with 
a  horse  of  his  called  Wagram  ;  two  pages  about 
Cyrus,  another  of  his  horses  ;  a  page  about  his 
horse  named  Emir ;  half-a-page  about  his  Coco  ; 
three  pages  about  Gongalve  ;  two  about  Coquet ; 
three  about  Tausis,  and  so  on  all  the  way  through, 
while  everything  that  is  said  about  them  could 
quite  easily  be  condensed  into  three  or  four  short 
sentences. 

Indeed  the  biographers  of  the  majority  of  our 
great  military  leaders  have  deemed  it  necessary 
to  write  long  and  verbose  descriptions  of  the 
animals  that  were  owned  by  these  historical 
celebrities,  apparently  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  they  did  belong  to  celebrities. 

When  all  is  said,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how 
or  whence  they  can  have  obtained  such  circum- 
stantial information.  Granting,  however,  the 
truth  of  all  the  statements — and  one  cannot  say 
definitely  that  any  one  of  them  is  not  true  in 
every  detail — was  it  worth  while  to  tell  us  that 


NAPOLEON'S    HORSES  201 

Piers  Gaveston  owned  a  grey,  or  that  Blucher 
remarked  upon  some  uninteresting  occasion  that 
he  had  a  horse  that  used  to  jib  ? 

Yet  trivial  points  of  this  sort  are  to  be  found 
mentioned  in  plenty  of  the  so-called  popular  bio- 
graphies of  our  great  men. 

Of  more  interest  it  would  have  been  had  the 
biographers  succeeded  in  discovering,  and  then 
told  us,  what  sort  of  bits  Napoleon  liked  to 
ride  his  chargers  in,  and  his  reason  or  reasons 
for  preferring  them,  or  whether  Blucher  ever 
tried  his  grey  in  blinkers.  Then  the  horses 
described  at  such  weary  length  might  possibly 
have  taught  us  a  lesson  or  two  worth  learning. 


PART    III 

FROM  THE  STUART  PERIOD  TO  THE 
PRESENT  DAY 

CHAPTER  I 

Arrival  of  the  Markham  Arabian,  the  first  Arab  imported  into 
England — Newmarket  village  founded  by  James  I. — Decline  of  the 
"great  horse" — The  Royal  Studs — James  I.  organises  a  race 
meeting  on  the  frozen  River  Ouse — Superstitious  beliefs  concerning 
horses — James  I.  meets  with  a  grotesque  riding  mishap — Pro- 
sperity of  the  Turf — Riding  match  between  Lord  Haddington  and 
Lord  Sheffield — The  Turf  vigorously  denounced  as  "  an  evil  likely 
to  imperil  the  whole  country's  prosperity  " 

"  17" ING  JAMES  I.'s  love  of  racing,"  writes  a 
•*^"  trustworthy  chronicler  of  the  movements 
at  the  court  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  "was 
due  to  the  importation  into  England  of  the  first 
Arab  horse  ever  seen  here." 

That  simple  statement  records  one  of  the  most 
important  incidents  that  has  occurred  in  the 
development  of  the  horse  in  this  country,  an 
incident  that  subsequently  proved  to  be  of  great 
moment  in  connection  with  the  history  of  Great 
Britain.  For  though  the  assertion  has  many 
times  been  controverted,  careful  research  proves 
beyond  doubt  that  until  the  arrival  in  England 

202 


THE   MARKHAM    ARABIAN          203 

of  the  Markham  Arabian — which  in  after  genera- 
tions was  to  become  so  greatly  renowned — no  Arab 
of  any  sort  had  been  brought  into  this  country. 

The  stories  that  have  been  told  of  this,  the 
first  of  the  famous  Eastern  sires,  are  numerous, 
and,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  the  majority  of 
them  are  apparently  untrue. 

One  of  the  most  widely  circulated  of  the  mis- 
statements  was  to  the  effect  that  the  price  paid 
by  King  James  to  Mr  Markham  for  this  particular 
Arab  sire  was  not  less  than  ^500,  and  in  papers 
and  books  almost  innumerable,  in  which  the 
Markham  Arabian  is  mentioned,  this  false  state- 
ment is  repeated. 

That  it  is  false  beyond  dispute  is  proved  by 
the  actual  entry  of  the  purchase  that  may  be 
seen  to  this  day  in  the  Exchequer  or  Receipt 
Order  Books  in  the  Public  Record  Office.  The 
entry  runs  as  follows  : — 

"  Item  the  2Oth  of  December,  1616,  paid  to 
Master  Markham  for  the  Arabian  Horse  for  His 
Majesty's  own  use,  ^154,  o.  o." 

It  is  almost  inconceivable  that  anyone  can 
seriously  have  believed  that  ^500,  or  any  sum 
approaching  it,  could  have  been  paid  for  this  sire, 
for  at  that  period  no  sum  approaching  ^500  ever 
was  paid  for  any  horse,  the  purchasing  value  of 
money  being  until  after  the  reign  of  James  I.  so 
much  in  excess  of  its  purchasing  value  some  two 
centuries  later. 


204  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

That  several  thoroughbred  Eastern  sires  were 
bought  by  James  is  well  known,  among  the  last 
to  which  reference  is  made  by  the  historians  being 
the  famous  Villiers  Arabs,  which  the  king  does 
not  appear  to  have  acquired  until  towards  the 
end  of  his  reign. 

Yet  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  and 
written  about  John  Markham's  stallion,  the  horse 
was  not,  according  to  that  excellent  judge  of 
horses,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  the  class  of  animal 
that  any  man  would  have  chosen  to  breed  from 
for  looks,  for,  in  the  duke's  own  words,  "He 
[the  Markham  Arabian]  was  a  bay,  but  a  little 
horse,  and  no  rarity  for  shape  ;  for  I  have  seen 
many  English  horses  far  finer.  .  .  .  Mr  Markham 
sold  him  to  the  King  for  five  hundred  pounds 
(szc),  and  being  trained  up  for  a  course,  when  he 
came  to  run,  every  horse  beat  him." 

I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  the  identity 
of  John  Markham  has  never  been  positively  traced, 
also  that  the  consensus  of  opinion  inclines  to  the 
belief  that  he  was  the  father  of  the  famous  author, 
Gervase  Markham,  who  for  many  years  held 
the  post  of  keeper  of  Clipston  Shraggs  Walk,  in 
Sherwood  Forest. 

Among  the  works  of  Gervase  Markham  is 
a  volume  entitled  "  Cavalarice,  or  the  English 
Horseman,"  in  which  many  grotesque  and  un- 
intentionally humorous  passages  are  to  be  found. 

Each  of  the  eight  books  which  together  go  to 


JAMES   I.    FOUNDS    NEWMARKET    205 

make  up  this  work  is  dedicated  to  some  dis- 
tinguished personage,  of  whom  James  I.  is  one, 
and  Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  another. 

To  James  I.  we  are  probably  indebted  for  the 
existence  of  the  town  of  Newmarket,  for  it  is 
certain  that  he  not  only  inaugurated  the  construc- 
tion of  the  village,  but  in  addition  brought  his 
influence  to  bear  upon  its  development,  and  that 
he  greatly  helped  to  stimulate  the  interest  which 
the  people  of  Newmarket  and  the  neighbourhood 
already  took  in  the  breeding  and  training  of  run- 
ning horses.  It  may  be  partly  for  this  reason 
that  Newmarket  is  still  so  often  spoken  of  as 
"the  royal  village." 

Notwithstanding  the  disappointment  the  Mark- 
ham  Arabian  must  have  afforded  James  I.,  we 
read  that  the  king  offered  a  silver  bell  of  consider- 
able value  to  be  run  for  at  Newmarket,  that  the 
entries  for  the  race  were  numerous,  and  that 
"the  event  gave  rise  to  much  speculation,  wager- 
ing and  public  interest." 

It  was,  indeed,  in  this  connection  that  Ben 
Jonson  wrote  so  caustically,  or  rather  satirically, 
in  his  famous  "  Alchemist,"  and  alluded  incident- 
ally to  "the  rules  to  cheat  at  horse  races." 

Elsewhere  Jonson  describes,  and  mentions  by 
name,  some  of  the  race  horses  that  probably  were 
well  known  on  the  Turf  at  about  that  period. 

Seeing  how  keen  the  interest  was  that  James  I. 
took  almost  from  boyhood  in  all  that  related  to 


206  THE   HORSE   IN  HISTORY 

the  Turf,  and  to  the  breeding  of  race  horses,  we 
can  hardly  be  surprised  to  hear  that  during  his 
reign  the  general  interest  in  the  breeding  of 
"great  horses,"  which  had  been  so  marked  a 
feature  of  Henry  VIII. 's  reign,  also  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  at  one  time  threatened  to  die  out. 

Robert  Reyce  speaks  of  this  in  his  "  Breviary 
of  Suffolk,"  a  book  which  he  dedicated  to  Sir 
Robert  Crane,  of  Chiltern,  and  elsewhere  allu- 
sions are  to  be  found  to  the  decay  of  interest  in 
the  breeding  of  "great  horses." 

Indeed  James  appears  to  have  admitted  quite 
openly  that  the  bare  sight  of  the  animals  bored 
him  "  owing  to  the  clumsy  appearance  they  pre- 
sented," a  view  that  is  shared  to-day  by  several 
of  the  more  prominent  of  our  owners  of  race 
horses. 

Under  the  circumstances  it  is  amusing  to  find 
the  king  himself  inditing  a  ponderous  treatise 
"for  the  instruction  and  edification  of  his  son," 
Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  a  treatise  suitably 
enough  entitled  "  Religio  Regis  :  or  the  Faith 
and  Duty  of  a  Prince." 

Apparently  he  wrote  the  greater  part  of  this 
work  at  Newmarket,  for  in  it  he  alludes  more 
than  once  to  the  races  which  were  being  held 
there  at  the  time,  races  at  which  he  had  been 
present  on  the  day  he  wrote. 

That  he  deemed  horsemanship  to  be  a  form  of 
exercise  of  inestimable  value  becomes  obvious  as 


THE   ROYAL   STUDS  207 

we  read  "  Religio  Regis"  ;  but  then  in  the  reign 
of  almost  every  monarch  from  about  the  beginning 
of  the  Stuart  period  down  to  the  time  of  the  four 
Georges  great  stress  is  laid  by  the  various  sove- 
reigns upon  the  advisability  that  the  sons  of  the 
nobles  and  of  the  aristocracy  should  become  pro- 
ficient horsemen. 

The  author  of  "The  Court  of  King  James" 
also  is  emphatic  in  his  advice  to  courtiers  "to  be 
very  forwardly  inclined  to  bring  up  horses,"  add- 
ing that  such  horses  should  be  bred  from  the  best 
strains  only,  and  that  no  matter  how  great  the 
sum  expended  in  order  to  secure  good  strains,  the 
money  could  not  be  looked  upon  as  wasted. 

Of  the  royal  studs  in  the  reign  of  James  I.,  the 
most  important  probably  were  those  at  Newmarket, 
at  Eltham,  atTutbury,  Malmesbury  and  Cole  Park, 
and  among  the  manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum 
there  may  be  seen  to-day  an  interesting  list  of  the 
"necessaries"  which  appertained  to  the  royal 
stables,  all  classified  under  separate  headings — 
geldings,  cart  horses,  coursers,  hunters,  battle 
horses,  and  so  on. 

Remarks  upon  the  part  played  by  the  horse  in 
history  at  about  this  time  are  to  be  found  also  in 
Lodge's  "  Illustrations  of  British  History,"  where, 
in  the  third  volume,  we  read  that  on  6th  April 
1605  there  arrived  at  Greenwich  Palace  "a  dozen 
gallant  mares,  all  with  foal,  four  horses,  and  eleven 
stallions,  all  coursers  of  Naples." 


208  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

These  the  archduke  begged  King  James  to 
accept  as  a  small  mark  of  the  esteem  in  which 
the  king  was  held  by  himself  and  his  country- 
men. 

In  the  historical  records  of  almost  the  whole  of 
James  I.'s  reign  we  find  reference  made  repeatedly 
to  race  horses,  also  to  the  sport  of  hunting.  An 
important  fixture,  as  we  should  call  it  to-day, 
apparently  was  the  Chester  Meeting.  It  took 
place  on  St  George's  Day,  and  the  chief  race 
was  known  as  "  The  St  George's  Cup."  The 
riders  carried  ten  stone,  and  the  entrance  stake 
was  half-a-crown. 

A  quaint  rule  in  connection  with  this  race  was 
that  the  winning  owner  had  to  contribute  to  a  fund 
for  the  benefit  of  the  prisoners  confined  in  the 
North  Gate  jail  "the  sum  of  six  shillings  and 
eightpence  or  three  shillings  and  fourpence,  on 
certain  conditions." 

In  addition  to  the  cup,  silver  bells  were  run  for 
at  this  meeting,  and  it  is  interesting  to  learn  that 
before  removing  their  prizes  the  cup  winner  and 
the  bell  winners  were  compelled  to  deposit  "ade- 
quate security  " — presumably  with  the  race  com- 
mittee— for  these  trophies.  For  all  the  principal 
trophies  had  to  be  run  for  again  at  the  following 
meeting,  and  we  are  told  quite  seriously  that  it 
was  feared  that  if  the  temporary  owners  were 
allowed  to  remove  these  prizes  without  leaving 
any  security  they  might  have  been  disposed  to 


THE   TURF   IN   JAMES   I.'S   REIGN     209 

make  away  with  them  before  the  date  of  the  next 
meeting ! 

At  the  Chester  Meeting,  and  therefore  pre- 
sumably elsewhere,  the  sheriff  acted  as  starter, 
"  and  if  any  rider  committed  foul  play  during  the 
race  he  was  disqualified  in  case  he  won." 

About  the  year  1624,  however,  certain  changes 
were  made  in  the  rules  of  racing,  and  from  that 
time  onward  some  of  the  races  were  run  five 
times  round  the  course  instead  of  only  three 
times,  also  the  winner  of  a  cup  became  entitled 
to  retain  it  as  his  property  "  upon  the  first 
occasion  of  gaining  it." 

Professional  jockeys  in  the  reign  of  James  I. 
held,  in  a  sense,  quite  a  good  position.  The 
king  associated  with  them  frequently,  especially 
at  Newmarket.  Indeed,  he  openly  admitted  that 
he  preferred  the  company  of  sportsmen  to  that 
of  politicians,  and  that  the  surroundings  of  the 
racecourse  and  the  pleasures  of  the  chase  attracted 
him  far  more  than  did  the  business  of  the  state. 

His  enemies,  as  we  know,  took  advantage  of 
these  carelessly  uttered  assertions  when  later 
they  set  to  work  to  encompass  his  downfall, 
and  during  the  closing  years  of  his  reign  he 
was  made  to  suffer  unjustly  for  many  of  the 
minor  follies  of  his  youth. 

It  was  wholly  characteristic  of  James  that  he 
should  upon  one  occasion — he  was  staying  at 
Croydon  at  the  time  in  order  to  attend  the 


210  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

race  meeting  that  was  held  there  in  Easter  week 
— have  in  a  sudden  access  of  emotional  en- 
thusiasm created  his  friend,  Philip  Herbert,  a 
knight,  a  baron  and  a  viscount  in  the  course  of 
a  few  minutes. 

This  he  is  said  to  have  done  in  order  to  mark 
his  appreciation  of  Herbert's  self-control  when, 
after  being  struck  in  the  face  by  a  Scotsman 
named  Ramsey,  Herbert  refrained  from  hitting 
back. 

Though  the  king  and  all  his  courtiers  and 
many  strangers  were  present  upon  the  occasion, 
Herbert  did  not  betray  the  least  sign  of  annoy- 
ance, though  the  blow  was  a  severe  one. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  during  James's 
reign  the  Scots  had,  as  a  nation,  come  to  be 
almost  execrated,  so  that  the  affront  was  all  the 
greater. 

The  king  is  said  to  have  expressed  it  as  his 
opinion  that  under  the  circumstances  Philip 
Herbert's  self-restraint  came  near  to  being  heroic  ! 

As  James's  fondness  for  racing  increased,  so 
did  the  great  majority  of  his  nobles,  his  barons 
and  his  courtiers  profess  to  grow  fonder  of  the 
sport,  while  many  soon  took  to  gambling  with 
great  recklessness. 

This  the  king  apparently  encouraged  them  to  do, 
for  we  learn  that  he  was  "  wont  to  laugh  heartily 
when  told  that  some  of  his  sycophants  had  lost 
exceptionally  large  sums  of  money,"  or,  as  was 


A   RACE   MEETING   ON   THE   ICE    211 

frequently  the  case,  that  one  or  other  of  them 
had  been  compelled  to  part  with  a  portion  of  his 
estates  in  order  to  meet  debts  of  honour.  The 
women  of  the  court  also  aped  the  king  at  this 
time,  as  indeed  they  appear  to  have  done  in 
almost  every  age.  Yet  their  losses  were  small 
by  comparison  with  the  sums  lost  on  the  Turf 
by  their  daughters  and  granddaughters  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.,  half-a-century  or  so  later. 

Two  years  after  James  I.  had  ascended  the 
throne  there  set  in  one  of  the  coldest  winters 
this  country  has  ever  known,  with  the  result  that 
a  long  stretch  of  the  River  Ouse  became  frozen 
over  and  so  afforded  the  king  an  opportunity,  of 
which  he  was  quick  to  avail  himself,  of  organising 
a  race-meeting  on  the  ice. 

Drake  tells  us  that  the  course  extended  "from 
the  tower  at  the  end  of  Marygate,  under  the 
great  arch  of  the  bridge,  to  the  crane  at  Skelder- 
gate  Postern." 

But  even  so  early  as  this  in  the  reign  of  King 
James  the  opponents  of  horse  racing  began  to 
raise  indignant  protests  against  "the  folly  and 
wickedness  of  betting  on  running  horses,"  pro- 
tests to  which  but  scant  attention  was  paid. 

Not  until  some  years  later  did  the  extremely 
zealous  clergyman  named  Hinde  set  seriously  to 
work  to  denounce  the  practice  of  gambling  in  any 
and  every  form,  and  he  appears  then  to  have 
spoken  and  written  so  forcibly  that  many  persons 


212  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

of  intelligence  and  education — I  quote  from  a 
trustworthy  source — gathered  round  and  strove 
to  encourage  him  to  the  best  of  their  ability. 

Racing  in  particular  he  waged  war  against, 
declaring  it  to  be  "  an  exercise  of  profaneness 
diligently  followed  by  many  of  our  gentlemen 
and  by  many  of  inferior  rank  also."  Great 
injury,  he  maintained,  was  done  by  men  of  rank 
and  others  "  who  of  their  weekly  and  almost 
daily  meetings,  and  matches  on  their  bowling 
greens,  or  their  lavish  betting  of  great  wagers  in 
such  sorry  trifles,  and  of  their  stout  and  strong 
abbeting  of  so  sillie  vanaties  amongst  hundreds, 
sometimes  thousands,  of  rude  and  vile  persons  to 
whom  they  should  give  better,  and  not  so  bad 
example  and  encouragement,  as  to  be  idle  in 
neglecting  their  callings  ;  wasteful  in  gaming, 
and  spending  their  means ;  wicked  in  cursing 
and  swearing,  and  dangerously  profane  in  their 
brawling  and  quarrelling." 

These  observations,  and  many  more  to  the 
same  effect,  are  to  be  found  in  the  "  Biography 
of  Bruen "  ;  yet  in  the  long  run  the  diatribes 
made  but  little  difference,  for  the  passion  for 
gambling  had  taken  a  firm  hold  of  the  people 
of  almost  all  classes,  and  while  it  lasted  it  flourished 
exceedingly. 

We  do  not  hear  of  many  famous  horses  during 
the  reign  of  James  I.,  save  the  sires  which  the 
king  himself  imported ;  yet  it  is  certain  that  the 


SUPERSTITIOUS    BELIEFS  213 

popularity  of  the  horse  increased  during  the  first 
two  decades  of  the  seventeenth  century,  quite 
apart  from  the  popularity  that  betting  upon 
horse  races  continued  to  acquire. 

As  a  natural  result,  perhaps,  greater  attention 
soon  came  to  be  paid  to  the  management  and 
care  of  horses,  to  feeding  and  exercising  them, 
so  that  probably  the  owners  of  the  thoroughbreds 
of  those  days  had  begun  to  realise,  as  they  do  not 
appear  to  have  done  before,  that  a  horse's  work- 
ing years  may  be  considerably  prolonged  if  he  be 
fed  carefully  and  exercised  regularly. 

Indeed  the  crass  ignorance  that  until  about 
this  time  had  prevailed  with  regard  to  the  treat- 
ment of  sick  horses  comes  near  to  being  ludicrous. 
Superstition,  as  we  know,  was  rampant  in  con- 
nection with  the  curing  of  suffering  humanity, 
and  various  forms  of  superstition  extended  in  a 
great  measure  to  the  treatment  of  animals  that 
were  out  of  health. 

Thus  we  read  of  horses  supposed  to  be  pos- 
sessed by  evil  spirits,  when  what  they  probably 
were  suffering  from  was  an  attack  of  simple 
staggers ;  of  witches  being  consulted  when  a 
horse  went  lame,  and  paid  liberally  for  their 
grotesque  advice,  and  so  on  to  the  end. 

That  horses  so  often  went  lame  at  about  this 
period  was  due  probably  to  the  ignorance  of 
many  of  the  farriers  of  the  very  rudiments  of 
practical  farriery. 


2i4  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

In  Ireland,  possibly  also  in  parts  of  England, 
a  horse  with  what  is  called  to-day  a  "  wall  "  eye 
was  looked  upon  as  a  harbinger  of  evil,  and 
deemed  likely  to  bring  bad  luck,  especially  upon 
the  family  and  relatives  of  the  man  who  owned 
it ;  while  any  man  so  "  ill-advised  "  as  to  breed  a 
fearsome  creature  of  this  kind  often  was  after- 
wards glanced  at  askance  by  persons  who  before 
he  had  numbered  amongst  his  friends. 

Then  there  existed  also  a  superstitious  belief 
in  connection  with  a  horse  with  a  white  hoof,  but 
what  this  particular  superstition  was  I  have  not 
been  able  to  discover.  Apparently  the  owner  of 
a  horse  so  marked  was  glad  enough  to  get  rid  of 
it  for  a  sum  much  below  its  true  worth,  and  gener- 
ally he  deemed  himself  fortunate  if  able  to  sell 
such  a  horse  at  all. 

An  instance  is  on  record  of  a  weakly  foal  being 
left  out  all  night  in  a  snowstorm  as  a  superstitious 
test.  We  are  told  that  it  died  of  exposure,  and 
that  its  owner  at  once  thanked  God  for  His 
mercy  in  having  taken  from  him  a  creature  born 
with  an  evil  spirit,  the  inference  being  that  but 
for  the  alleged  evil  spirit  the  little  foal  would 
have  been  able  to  withstand  the  rigour  of  the 
blizzard  and  the  intense  cold. 

Stolen  horses  in  particular  were  believed  to 
possess  a  supernatural  power  that  would  enable 
them  to  find  their  way  home  to  their  rightful 
masters  if  they  succeeded  in  escaping  from  the 


JAMES  I.  PREFERS  TALL  HORSES    215 

thief.  But  plenty  of  horses,  as  we  know,  are 
to-day  able  to  find  their  way  home  from  a  long 
way  off,  horses  that  have  not  necessarily  been 
stolen. 

In  justice  let  it  be  said  that  James  laughed  to 
scorn  the  majority  of  these  superstitious  beliefs. 
This  is  strange,  for  in  some  respects  he  must 
have  been  almost  as  superstitious  as  many  of 
his  courtiers — and  for  that  matter  as  the  great 
bulk  of  his  subjects. 

Partial  to  tall  horses,  he  expressed  a  wish  that 
his  nobles  should  not  ride  cobs,  deeming  such 
animals  to  be  out  of  keeping  with  the  majesty  of 
the  court. 

It  was  probably  for  this  reason  that  he  strove 
to  encourage  his  subjects  to  ride  tall  horses. 

Then,  though  several  historians  appear  to  take 
it  for  granted  that  the  Turkish  horse  was  un- 
known in  England  until  the  arrival  of  the  famous 
Byerley  Turk  in  1689,  we  may  rest  assured  that 
Turkish  horses  were  here  in  James's  time,  and 
probable  before  his  time.  Blunderville  is  only 
one  of  the  early  writers  who  say  so  in  so  many 
words.  Incidentally  he  mentions  that  fully  a 
century  before  the  Byerley  Turk  was  brought  over 
he  himself  had  seen  "  horses  come  from  Turkey, 
as  well  into  Italic  as  thither  into  England,  indif- 
ferentlie  faire  to  the  eie,  tho'  not  verie  great  nor 
stronglie  made,  yet  very  light  and  swift  in  their 
running,  and  of  great  courage." 


216  THE   HORSE   IN    HISTORY 

Also  we  read  that  about  the  year  1617  "  half- 
a-dozen  Barbry  horses"  were  brought  to  England 
by  Sir  Thomas  Edmonds  and  stabled  at  New- 
market in  the  royal  paddocks. 

A  quaint  description  is  to  be  found  in  the 
works  of  several  of  the  writers  in  James  I.'s  reign 
of  an  accident  that  befell  the  king  in  December  of 
the  year  1621  as  he  was  riding  after  dinner,  an 
accident  that  in  spite  of  its  undeniable  grotesque- 
ness  might  well  have  proved  disastrous. 

The  king,  it  seems,  had  "gone  abroad  early 
in  the  day,  and  to  Theobald's  to  dinner."  He 
appears  to  have  enjoyed  his  dinner  at  Theobald's 
greatly,  and  to  have  decided  quite  suddenly,  as 
soon  as  the  meal  was  over,  that  he  would  like 
"to  ride  on  horseback  abroad." 

The  accident  that  presently  was  to  occur  is 
attributed  by  different  writers  to  different  causes, 
the  most  charitable  of  the  reports  being  to  the 
effect  that  the  king's  horse  stumbled  and  threw 
his  royal  master  on  to  the  frozen  surface  of  the 
New  River  "with  so  much  violence  that  the  ice 
brake  and  he  fell  in  so  that  nothing  but  his  boots 
were  seen." 

Sir  Richard  Young,  who  chanced  to  be  riding 
just  behind  him,  instantly  sprang  off  his  horse 
and  succeeded  with  the  help  of  a  friend,  though 
only  with  great  difficulty,  in  dragging  the  dripping 
monarch  "  out  of  the  hole  and  his  undignified 
predicament." 


JAMES   I.'S   GROTESQUE   MISHAP     217 

According  to  another  chronicler,  "  there  came 
much  water  out  of  his  mouth  and  body,"  yet 
"  His  Majesty  rid  back  to  Theobald's,  went  into 
a  warme  bed,  and,  as  we  heere,  is  well,  which 
God  continue." 

That  the  king  had  a  sense  of  humour  is  made 
manifest  by  the  statement  that  upon  his  recovery 
he  laughed  heartily  at  the  recollection  of  the 
incident,  while  we  are  further  told  that  his 
gratitude  to  Sir  Richard  Young,  his  rescuer, 
"did  not  stop  short  at  the  hearty  grasp  of  the 
hand  he  gave  him." 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  James's 
strange  literary  work,  "  Religio  Regis  :  or  the 
Faith  and  Duty  of  a  Prince."  This  is  said  to 
have  been  written  during  the  King's  temporary 
residence  at  Newmarket  "for  the  betterment  of 
his  health  "  (sic). 

It  was  produced  primarily  for  "the  instruction 
and  edification  "  of  his  son,  Henry,  at  that  time 
Prince  of  Wales,  but  it  came  to  be  read  widely 
by  his  nobles  and  all  about  the  court. 

In  this  remarkable  treatise  we  are  told  that 
"  the  honourablest  and  most  commendable  Games 
that  a  king  can  use  are  on  Horseback,  for  it 
becomes  a  Prince  above  all  Men  to  be  a  good 
Horseman.  And  use  such  Games  on  Horseback 
as  may  teach  you  to  handle  your  Arms  thereon, 
such  as  Tilt,  Ring,  and  low-riding  for  handling 
your  sword.  .  .  . 


2i8  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

"As  for  hunting,  the  most  honourable  and 
noblest  Sport  thereof  is  with  running  Hounds  ; 
for  it  is  a  thievish  sport  of  hunting  to  shoot  with 
Guns  and  Bows.  .  .•<•; 

"  However,  in  using  either  of  these  Sports 
observe  such  Moderation  that  you  slip  not  there- 
with Hours  appointed  for  your  Affairs,  which  you 
ought  ever  precisely  to  keep  ;  remembering  that 
these  Pastimes  are  but  ordain'd  for  you  to  enable 
you  for  your  Office,  to  which  you  are  call'd  by 
your  Birth." 

Before  the  close  of  James's  reign  the  Turf  bore 
every  sign  of  having  been  granted  a  fresh  lease 
of  life.  Private  riding  matches  among  men  of 
rank  and  wealth  had  become  popular  again,  and 
though  some  of  these  were  "  'cross  -  country 
matches,"  plenty  were  ridden  on  the  flat,  upon 
which  occasions  vast  sums  of  money  were  run 
for  almost  always. 

Of  these  races  one  that  seems  to  have  attracted 
much  attention  was  run  in  the  year  1622,  for  a 
cup  valued  at  twelve  pounds,  when  the  crowd  that 
assembled  was  one  of  the  biggest  at  that  time  on 
record. 

The  wagers  that  were  made  were  mostly  in 
large  sums,  and  we  are  told  that,  to  the  surprise 
of  the  majority  of  the  betting  men  "and  their 
subsequent  discomfiture,"  the  race,  in  which  there 
were  six  "tryers,"  was  won  by  an  outsider,  the 
property  of  a  popular  sportsman,  Sir  George  Bowes. 


PROSPERITY   OF   THE   TURF        219 

The  judge  in  this  race  was  a  Mr  Humphrey 
Wyvell,  and  so  greatly  annoyed  did  the  crowd 
become  at  the  defeat  of  the  favourite  that  they 
made  a  desperate  attempt  to  attack  the  judge, 
with  the  intention  of  injuring  him  seriously,  an 
attempt  that  fortunately  was  frustrated. 

We  are  not  told  if  the  king  was  present  upon 
this  occasion,  but  the  principal  racing  men  of  the 
period  undoubtedly  were  there.  The  king  him- 
self attended  a  meeting  at  Lincoln  in  the  spring 
of  1617,  where  he  lost  very  heavily. 

Towards  the  end  of  this  reign  strong  opposition 
to  the  increasing  popularity  of  racing  began  to 
manifest  itself  among  what  we  should  to-day  call 
the  middle  class,  owing,  so  it  was  said,  to  the 
sport  being  vigorously  denounced  from  pulpit 
and  platform  as  a  growing  national  evil,  "  one 
likely  to  imperil  the  whole  country's  prosperity." 

For  some  time  the  king  strove  to  smother 
these  denunciations,  and  he  even  partially  suc- 
ceeded in  the  attempt. 

Yet  in  the  end  the  people  must  have  triumphed, 
for  we  read  that  James  was  still  on  the  throne 
when  some  of  the  more  popular  of  the  flat-race 
meetings  were  tacitly  allowed  to  be  abandoned, 
while  in  1620  the  meeting  which  usually  had 
been  held  at  Thetford  was  directly  suppressed 
by  an  order  of  the  Privy  Council. 

Among  the  most  important  of  the  private 
riding  matches,  as  they  were  then  called,  that 


220  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

took  place  in  James's  reign  was  the  one  arranged 
at  Newmarket  between  Lord  Haddington  and 
Lord  Sheffield. 

Run  at  Huntingdon  towards  the  end  of  the  year 
1607,  the  race  was  extremely  exciting  from  start 
to  finish.  Both  men  appear  to  have  been  good 
riders,  and  the  stake  run  for  is  said  to  have 
amounted  to  a  considerable  sum. 

Yet  the  various  accounts  of  the  match  give 
versions  which  differ  widely  as  to  what  hap- 
pened, and  while  one  writer  declares  that  Lord 
Haddington  won  with  difficulty,  another  con- 
tradicts him  by  maintaining  that  the  stake  was 
awarded  to  Lord  Sheffield. 

With  regard  to  the  pictures  that  are  said  to 
have  been  drawn  from  life  in  those  days,  if  they 
are  true  to  life  it  becomes  obvious  that  some 
three  centuries  ago  it  was  not  customary  for 
race  riders,  or  "tryers,"  to  stand  in  their  stirrups 
while  riding  races,  as  they  do  to-day  and  most 
certainly  did  in  the  last  century  and  the  century 
before  it.  This  is  strange,  for  some  of  the 
earliest  of  our  writers  who  touch  incidentally 
upon  the  subject  of  race  riding  are  rather  emphatic 
in  declaring  that  the  jockey  should  get  rid  of  all 
"  dead  "  weight,  and  of  course  it  is  chiefly  by 
standing  in  the  stirrups  that  "dead"  weight  can 
be  neutralised. 

James  I.  would  seem  to  have  paid  more  atten- 
tion to  the  theory  of  training  horses  he  intended 


QUEER   FARRIERY  221 

to  run  than  any  of  his  predecessors  did,  though 
this  is  not  great  praise,  so  ignorant  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  scientific  training  were  the 
horse  owners  of  about  that  period. 

Upon  slight  provocation  horses  were  freely 
bled,  just  as  human  beings  were  bled  or  "  leeched  " 
less  than  a  hundred  years  ago.  Indeed  we  read 
of  one  horse  that  was  bled  while  in  the  hunting 
field,  owing  to  its  having  proved  too  restive  for 
its  owner  to  ride  with  comfort  (!)  ;  while  another 
was  driven  into  a  leech  pond  in  order  that  the 
leeches  might  suck  off  "  the  goodlie  warts  "  with 
which  its  belly  and  thighs  were  studded. 

So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  about  a 
century  and  a  half  ago  the  leech  cure  was  deemed 
quite  the  best  for  warts.  Yet  perhaps  we  are 
wrong  to  think  or  to  speak  contemptuously  of  the 
ignorance  of  our  forefathers.  Who  can  say  that 
in  years  to  come  our  descendants  may  not  speak 
as  contemptuously  of  us — their  ancestors — because 
we  fired  horses,  and  because  we  drenched  them 
with  physic  for  various  ailments  ? 

Indeed  there  are  already  veterinary  surgeons 
who  aver  that  to  fire  a  horse  under  any  circum- 
stances is  to  commit  a  grave  blunder,  and  that 
firing  as  a  general  practice  ought  emphatically  to 
be  abandoned. 


CHAPTER  II 

First  races  of  importance  run  at  Newmarket — Races  in  Hyde 
Park — The  Helmsley  Turk  and  the  Morocco  Barb — Racing  intro- 
duced into  Holland — Importation  of  Spanish  stallions  into  England 
— Prince  Charles's  riding  master,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle — Increas- 
ing cost  of  horses — Marshal  de  Bassompierre  ;  his  loss  through 
gambling,  ,£500,000  in  a  year  ;  Sir  John  Fenwick — Sir  Edward 
Harwood's  pessimism — Cromwell's  Ironsides — Armour  discarded 
— The  opposition  to  stage  coaches  ;  Mr  Cressett's  theory  ;  Charles 
II.  favours  their  adoption 

'  I  VHE  early  history  of  Newmarket  is  more  or 
less  wrapped  in  mystery,  or  rather  in  con- 
fusion ;  in  other  words,  the  writers  who  have  dealt 
with  "the  inauguration  of  Newmarket  racing," 
as  one  of  them  terms  it,  in  many  instances  contra- 
dict one  another  so  flatly  that  the  truth  can  be 
arrived  at  only  by  conjecture  or  by  inference. 

Apparently  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
Armada  in  1588  was  the  ill  wind  that  indirectly 
benefited  Newmarket  so  far  as  its  horses  were 
concerned,  for  there  is  no  doubt  that  many  of  the 
horses  rescued  from  drowning  when  the  great 
vessels  of  the  Armada  were  wrecked  were  sent 
direct  to  Newmarket,  "  where  great  surprise 
was  expressed  by  all  who  beheld  them  at  their 
exceeding  swiftness." 

From  this  one   would  naturally  conclude  that 

222 


FIRST  RACES   OF    IMPORTANCE     223 

interesting  races  were  run  on  Newmarket  Heath 
towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  yet 
elsewhere  we  read  that  the  first  races  of  import- 
ance run  at  Newmarket  took  place  in  1640,  and 
that  the  round  course  was  not  made  until  about 
the  year  1666,  while  a  third  historian  goes  so  far 
as  to  declare  that  a  gold  cup  run  for  at  the  New- 
market Spring  Meeting  of  1634  affords  per  se  the 
earliest  irrefutable  record  of  such  an  occurrence, 
based  on  contemporary  data. 

Yet  from  statements  set  down  in  an  earlier 
chapter  we  have  already  seen  that  horse  racing 
of  a  sort  must  have  taken  place  at  Newmarket 
quite  a  long  time  before  this.  In  point  of  fact, 
in  almost  every  historical  record  of  Newmarket 
that  I  have  come  upon  I  have  found  either 
direct  or  indirect  allusion  to  the  renown  of  the 
neighbourhood  of  Newmarket  for  the  horses  that 
were  bred  or  trained  there. 

The  horses  brought  ashore  from  the  Spanish 
vessels  probably  were  among  the  best  that  Spain 
at  that  time  possessed,  and  several  attempts  were 
made  by  the  Spanish  to  recover  some  of  them.  It 
is  known  that  towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Spanish  were  making  determined 
efforts  to  breed  faster  horses  than  they  had  pre- 
viously bred,  yet  it  is  surprising  that  the  horses 
they  had  brought  with  them  upon  their  famous 
expedition  should  have  been  so  swift,  for  they 
must  have  been  animals  of  far  heavier  type  than 


224  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

the  animals  they  would  in  a  general  way  breed  for 
racing. 

The  Spaniards  of  three  centuries  ago,  we  must 
of  course  remember,  were  renowned  for  their 
horsemanship  far  more  highly  than  their  descen- 
dants of  to-day  are. 

In  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  horse  races  were  run 
in  Hyde  Park,  a  track  having  been  laid  down 
there  with  great  care.  This  meeting  was  im- 
mensely popular,  and  "  the  inhabitants  of  London 
and  those  parts  near  London  assembled  in  their 
thousands  to  watch  the  running  horses,"  and  in 
most  instances  to  squander  large  sums. 

"The  Park  first  became  under  Charles  I. 
the  fashionable  society  rendezvous,"  Mrs  Alec 
Tweedie  tells  us  in  her  interesting  volume, 
"  Hyde  Park  :  Its  History  and  Romance."  "  Its 
greatest  attraction,  maybe,  was  the  racing  in  the 
Ring.  The  occasions  when  organised  meetings 
took  place  were  special  scenes  of  gaiety,  and 
were  evidently  thought  important  events,  as  even 
among  the  State  Papers  there  is  preserved  the 
agreement  for  a  race  that  took  place  there." 

In  later  years  an  attempt  was  made  to  revive 
the  Hyde  Park  race  meeting,  but  the  attempt  was 
vigorously  opposed  by  the  mass  of  the  residents  in 
the  neighbourhood,  and  by  many  others  as  well. 

A  report  of  a  race  in  Hyde  Park  appears  in  a 
copy  of  The  London  Post,  but  is  undated.  As  The 
London  Post  ceased  to  exist  after  the  year  1640, 


VAN    DYCK'S    FAMOUS    PICTURE,    NOW    IN    THE    NATIONAL   GAI.I.FRY.    OF    CHAKLES 
ON   HORSEBACK 


HELMSLEY  TURK  AND  MOROCCO  BARB  225 

this  race  was  run  probably  a  year  or  two  before 
that  date.  The  report  is  said  to  be  the  first 
detailed  account  of  a  horse  race  ever  published 
in  a  newspaper. 

"  I  made  a  present  to  the  King,"  Sully  writes, 
"of  six  beautiful  horses  richly  caparisoned,  and 
the  Sieur  of  St  Antoine  as  their  keeper."  The 
Sieur  of  St  Antoine,  who  after  being  equerry  to 
Prince  Henry  became  equerry  to  Charles  I.,  is 
represented  in  the  famous  Vandyck  picture  of 
King  Charles  in  armour,  in  the  picture  now  in 
the  National  Gallery. 


It  was  about  the  year  1641  that  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  greatly  helped  to  improve  the  breed 
of  horses  by  importing  the  famous  Helmsley  Turk 
and  the  almost  equally  famous  Morocco  Barb. 
It  is  curious  to  read  that  the  importation  of  these 
horses  was  at  first  looked  upon  with  grave  sus- 
picion by  a  great  body  of  the  principal  horse 
breeders  in  this  country,  and  by  others  interested 
in  the  horse  and  its  development. 

To  what  the  antagonism  was  owing  one  can 
hardly  say  for  certain.  One  report  has  it  that 
some  among  the  duke's  personal  enemies — he 
had  many  enemies — were  determined  to  do  all  in 
their  power  to  injure  him  by  wrecking  any  scheme 
in  which  he  presumably  was  interested.  The 


226  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

sums  he  paid  for  these  horses  were  consider- 
able, but  the  excellent  effect  the  good  blood 
had  upon  the  breed  fully  repaid  him  for  the 
incidental  outlay,  also  for  the  great  trouble  to 
which  he  had  been  put  to  secure  such  excellent 
stallions. 

Shortly  before  this  some  English  officers  serving 
in  the  Dutch  army  had  introduced  horse  racing 
into  Holland,  and  the  popularity  of  the  new  sport 
began  to  spread  there  quickly.  Soon  a  number 
of -race  meetings  came  to  be  organised,  and  in 
a  short  time  Dutch  emissaries  were  sent  over  to 
England  for  the  express  purpose  of  purchasing 
blood  stock  here. 

Being  comparatively  ignorant  of  horses — 
ignorant,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  requirements 
essential  in  a  racing  stallion — these  emissaries 
were  at  first  cheated  in  the  most  barefaced 
manner  by  some  of  the  very  men  who  only  a 
short  time  before  had  been  their  guests  in 
Holland! 

Later,  however,  they  succeeded  in  importing 
some  very  valuable  blood  stock,  and  in  several 
respects  the  race  meetings  they  presently 
organised  were  better  arranged  than  many  of 
the  English  meetings  of  that  period. 

In  1637  we  find  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  ap- 
pointed Governor  to  Prince  Charles — later  to 
become  King  Charles  II. — with  special  injunc- 
tions to  teach  him  to  ride  well. 


THE   DUKE   OF   NEWCASTLE        227 

The  duke's  volume  on  equitation,  published 
at  Antwerp  in  1658,  contains  particulars  of  the 
prince's  progress  in  the  art  of  horsemanship, 
from  which  we  may  gather  that  Prince  Charlie 
was  an  exceptionally  apt  pupil — "a  horseman  by 
nature,"  he  has  been  termed. 

So  emphatically  was  this  the  case  that  in  com- 
paratively a  few  years  he  professed  himself  able 
to  ride  any  horse  that  anyone  might  choose  to 
bring  to  him,  an  assertion  in  which  the  duke 
supported  him. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  the  duke  per- 
suaded his  royal  pupil  to  import  from  Spain  a 
number  of  exceptionally  fine  sires,  for,  as  he  said, 
Spanish  stallions  were  quite  unsurpassed,  and  in 
his  opinion  no  other  sort  of  stallion  ought  to  be 
admitted  into  this  country. 

The  duke  himself  has  been  described  as  "an 
iron  horseman,"  but  the  exact  meaning  of  the 
phrase  is  not  quite  clear.  He  had,  according  to 
some  writers,  an  "iron"  seat  on  a  horse,  while 
according  to  others  he  had  "iron"  hands — the 
latter  a  questionable  compliment. 

Probably  an  "  iron  "  nerve  is  what  they  really 
meant,  for  we  know  that  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
was  both  a  finished  and  a  fearless  horseman,  two 
important  qualifications  that  do  not  necessarily  go 
together.  We  are  further  told  that  in  teaching 
the  prince  to  ride  he  never  spared  him,  a  state- 
ment easily  believed  when  the  duke's  hard  and 


228  THE   HORSE  IN    HISTORY 

resolute  nature,  added  to  his  known  determina- 
tion to  succeed  at  any  cost  in  every  task  he  under- 
took to  accomplish,  are  borne  in  mind.  Ordered 
to  train  the  prince  into  a  skilful  horseman,  he  had 
at  once  set  to  work  to  do  it  to  the  best  of  his 
ability. 

Some  say  that  as  a  boy  Prince  Charlie  looked, 
when  in  the  saddle,  as  if  he  had  been  born  there, 
and  through  life  this  natural  seat  upon  a  horse 
stood  him  in  good  stead. 

In  addition  to  being  a  graceful  rider,  he  had 
a  very  strong  seat,  so  that  presumably  he  pos- 
sessed the  precious  gift  that  to-day  we  call 
"  hands." 

An  eighteenth-century  writer,  who  appears 
to  have  had  access  to  private  manuscripts  or 
documents  to  do  with  King  Charles  II.'s 
private  life,  avers  that  the  king  never,  as  we 
should  express  it,  pulled  a  horse  about.  Even 
tempered  with  his  horses,  he  seldom  or  never 
ill-treated  them.  They  appeared  to  respond 
instinctively  to  his  every  touch,  to  understand 
what  he  meant  by  the  varying  inflection  in  his 
voice,  and  to  divine,  as  if  by  magic,  what  their 
master  wished  them  to  do.  Also  he  never  out- 
rode a  horse  under  any  circumstances — never,  as 
we  should  say,  rode  a  horse  off  its  legs. 

He  preferred  long  stirrup  leathers  to  short,  but 
then  in  his  day  most  men  did. 

Also  it  is  said  of  him  that  he  never  would  look 


INCREASING   COST  OF   HORSES     229 

twice  at  a  horse  that   had  bad   quarters  or   in- 
different withers. 

Altogether  it  seems  clear  that,  though  he  had  a 
natural  aptitude  for  horsemanship,  he  must  have 
been  carefully  and  very  thoroughly  coached  in  all 
the  points  of  a  horse,  as  well  as  in  all  that  apper- 
tained to  the  management,  training  and  stabling 
of  horses  of  every  kind. 


Horses  had  risen  in  price  during  Charles  I.'s 
reign.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  they  rose 
higher  still. 

Thus  about  the  year  1635 — that  is  to  say 
towards  the  middle  of  Charles  I.'s  reign — 300 
and  400  pistoles  was  considered  a  moderate  sum 
to  pay  for  a  well-broken  young  horse. 

"  And  the  Marquis  of  Seralvo  told  me,"  writes 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  "  that  a  Spanish  horse 
called  II  Bravo,  and  sent  to  the  Arch-Duke 
Leopold,  his  master,  was  held  as  much  as  a 
Mannor  of  a  Thousand  Crowns  a  year,  and 
that  he  hath  known  horses  at  700,  800,  and  1000 
pistoles." 

Elsewhere  we  find  indisputable  evidence  that 
between  the  beginning  of  Charles  I.'s  and 
the  end  of  Charles  I  I.'s  reign  sums  varying 
from  400  to  700  pistoles  must  often  have  been 
paid  for  saddle  horses,  while  for  race  horses 


230  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

the  prices  were  considerably  in  excess  of  these 
sums. 

It  is  amusing  to  read  that  the  duke  spoke 
in  terms  almost  of  contempt  of  the  Barb,  for  it 
shows  that  in  one  respect  at  least  he  must  have 
been  prejudiced  in  much  the  same  way  that  some 
of  our  modern  owners  and  trainers  of  thorough- 
breds are  prejudiced. 

Yet  he  was  firmly  convinced  that  many  of  the 
horses  imported  from  such  countries  as  Germany, 
Denmark  and  Holland  were  well  suited  for 
harness  work  and  for  the  plough. 

In  face  of  this,  and  in  face  also  of  his  strong 
bias  in  favour  of  Spanish  stallions,  it  is  surprising 
to  hear  that  he  deemed  the  English  horse  to  be 
"the  best  horse  in  the  whole  world  for  all  uses 
whatever,  from  the  cart  to  the  manage,"  and  that 
he  even  considered  some  of  them  to  be  "as 
beautiful  horses  as  can  be  anywhere,  for  they  are 
bred  out  of  all  the  horses  of  all  nations." 

Equally  enthusiastic  upon  the  subject  of  the 
English  horse  and  its  merits,  and  upon  its  superi- 
ority over  the  horses  of  other  nations,  was  Marshal 
de  Bassompierre,  who  has  something  to  say  about 
them  in  the  interesting  memoirs  of  his  embassy 
in  England  in  1626. 

Thus  after  telling  us  that  during  his  residence 
in  this  country  he  received  from  some  of  the  high 
officers  of  state,  also  from  the  king  himself,  a 
present  of  fine  horses,  he  goes  on  to  mention 


HORSE   FAIRS  231 

incidentally  that  it  was  at  about  this  period  that 
English  thoroughbreds  were  introduced  into 
France  for  the  first  time. 

This  is  interesting,  inasmuch  as  certain  writers 
of  an  earlier  epoch  state  definitely  that  English 
thoroughbreds  were  to  be  seen  in  parts  of  France 
in  their  day. 

Bassompierre,  who  had  been  in  England  in 
Elizabeth's  reign,  is  likely  to  have  known  the 
true  facts.  In  addition  to  being  "  addicted  to 
horses,"  he  was  passionately  fond  of  gambling, 
and  the  latter  hobby  is  said  to  have  cost  him  in 
a  single  year  some  ,£500,000. 

A  family  notorious  early  in  the  Stuart  era  for 
its  devotion  to  the  Turf  was  the  Fenwick  family, 
so  much  so  that  several  of  its  members  are  de- 
scribed as  having  run  "  quite  out  of  their  fortunes  " 
in  their  futile  attempts  to  transform  two  or  three 
small  fortunes  into  one  large  one.  The  sensa- 
tional story  of  Sir  John  Fenwick's  trial,  followed 
by  his  execution  on  Tower  Hill  in  1697,  establishes 
a  sort  of  landmark  in  the  history  of  the  public 
executions  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  same  century  horse 
fairs  were  organised  throughout  England,  and 
year  by  year  they  became  events  of  greater  im- 
portance, many  hundreds  of  men  and  women  of 
all  ranks  travelling  from  far-distant  parts  of  the 
country  in  order  to  attend  them.  The  scenes  of 
ribaldry  by  which  many  of  these  fairs  were  fol- 


232  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

lowed  would  not  be  tolerated  now.  Among 
the  more  important  of  the  fairs  were  those  held 
at  Ripon,  Melton,  Pankridge  and  Northampton, 
but  many  of  the  others  were  almost  equally 
fashionable. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  that  Sir 
Edward  Harwood  presented  the  famous  petition, 
or  memorial,  in  which  he  explained  in  forcible 
language  that  "good  and  stout  horses  for  the 
defence  of  the  kingdom  "  would  soon  be  to  all 
intents  at  a  premium  owing  to  the  scant  attention 
that  was  then  being  paid  to  the  breeding  of  such 
animals,  adding  that  he  doubted  whether,  if  some 
2000  great  horses  should  be  wanted  at  short 
notice,  it  would  be  possible  to  find  so  many  in  a 
fit  condition  to  do  battle. 

The  French  horses  of  the  same  stamp,  he  went 
on  to  say,  were  in  almost  every  way  superior  to 
ours,  and  so  emphatic  was  he  upon  this  last  point 
that  he  openly  declared  that  if  some  2000  of 
the  best  of  our  great  horses  were  to  be  set  face 
to  face  in  battle  with  an  equal  number  of  the 
Frenchmen's  horses,  our  troops  would  to  a 
certainty  be  routed  with  heavy  loss. 

Seeing  how  earnestly  Harwood  spoke,  the 
king,  as  we  are  told,  expressed  sorrow  and  great 
amazement  at  what  he  heard,  and  at  once  inquired 
the  reason  of  the  English  horses'  alleged  in- 
feriority. 

Then  it  was  that  Sir  Edward  made  his  point. 


., J  t, 


OUVERIV  •     .HKr.KM.V 

HAHC3UMMI  ET    Ttrro  TC.RAAKVM 

.Nl'-r.r£l..VITUDINIJ 


ET   TOTU.'S  ANGLirl     I  VI  IE  HI  I   PROTECTOR, 
ORBE    CELEBERRIMI     HERO1S 

'I.JO     0,D.iO.      VviOi.-****-.          rtrmhr-J  Sn:tf 


OLIVER    CROMWELL    ON    HORSEBACK 

After  Van  Dyck 


CROMWELL'S   IRONSIDES  233 

With  considerable  bluntness  he  told  the  king  that 
the  decline  of  the  great  horse  was  due  chiefly  to 
the  spread  of  racing  and  hunting,  and  to  the 
growth,  consequent  thereon,  in  the  number  of 
race  meetings  that  were  being  organised,  and  in 
the  assemblage  of  persons  who  attended  them. 

For,  as  he  justly  pointed  out,  so  long  as  the 
attention  of  the  principal  body  of  the  nobility  and 
of  the  wealthy  landed  proprietors  was  centred 
upon  the  breeding  almost  wholly  of  light  and 
swift  horses,  it  was  not  possible  to  suppose  that 
time  would  be  found  to  attend  also  to  the  breeding 
and  rearing  of  the  powerful  animals  that  alone 
were  fit  to  carry  men-at-arms. 

Upon  hearing  this,  Charles  declared,  no  doubt 
in  all  good  faith,  that  he  would  take  steps  to  re- 
vive the  flagging  interest  in  the  production  of  good 
war  horses,  but  in  the  end  nothing  practical  was 
done. 

That  the  king  himself  took  interest  in  the  great 
horse  we  are  led  to  infer  from  the  fact  that  upon 
the  big  seal  he  is  shown  riding  astride  one.  In 
Vandyck's  portrait  of  Oliver  Cromwell  we  see 
Cromwell  riding  rather  a  light-coloured  great 
horse,  a  point  worthy  of  note  inasmuch  as  we 
know  that  from  about  that  time  onward  the  term 
"great"  horse  was  almost  always  taken  to  mean 
a  black  horse  of  this  particular  stamp. 

Oliver  Cromwell's  world-renowned  Ironsides 
were  not,  of  course,  mounted  on  great  horses. 


234  THE    HORSE   IN  HISTORY 

On  the  contrary,  though  the  Ironsides  proved 
themselves  to  be  by  far  the  most  powerful  cavalry 
seen  in  England  down  to  that  time,  their  strength 
was  due  not  to  their  weight,  but  to  their  remark- 
able mobility. 

The  dismay  the  Ironsides  spread  amongst  the 
foe  is  said  to  have  astonished  the  cavaliers  them- 
selves as  much  as  it  surprised  the  enemy. 

For  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Ironsides 
did  not  wear  armour.  Instead  they  were  protected 
merely  by  light  buff  coats,  so  that  naturally  they 
were  able  to  ride  far  lighter  and  consequently 
more  active,  horses. 

Probably  it  was  the  good  work  done  by  Crom- 
well's cavalry  that  marked  the  turning-point  in 
the  life  of  the  old  regime  by  driving  out  of  the 
field  not  only  the  great  horses  that  until  then  had 
been  deemed  wholly  indispensable,  but  also  by 
sounding  the  death-knell  of  armour  that  for  two 
centuries  had  been  growing  steadily  heavier  and 
more  ponderous. 

For  many  years,  however,  a  body  of  the  English 
military  authorities  metaphorically  clung  doggedly 
to  the  clumsy  horses  to  which  they  had  so  long  been 
accustomed,  and  to  the  clumsy  armour  as  well, 
declaring — as  some  of  their  successors  do  to-day 
— that  the  innovation  of  a  mobile  force  must  soon 
prove  unsatisfactory  and  ultimately  be  disbanded. 

Instead,  exactly  the  reverse  happened. 

By  slow  degrees  the   armour  was  discarded, 


BEGINNING   OF   STAGE   COACHES     235 

while  the  great  horses,  as  we  are  told,  were 
relegated  to  the  coach,  the  waggon  and  the 
plough. 

Among  those  who  adhered  longest  to  the 
theory  that  England  must  inevitably  lose  her 
prestige  if  the  great  horse  were  ousted  from  her 
army  for  good  and  all  was  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
of  that  period.  Laughed  at  for  his  pains,  and 
spoken  of  by  the  younger  generation  as  a  man 
not  able  to  see  ahead  of  the  times,  he  yet  stood 
firmly  by  his  opinion  almost  to  the  last.  As  the 
years  went  on,  and  the  younger  generation  in 
their  turn  grew  retrospective  and  pessimistic,  no 
doubt  they  too  were  laughed  at  by  their  sons,  and 
thus  history  continues  to  repeat  itself  even  to  the 
present  day. 


At  about  this  period  many  of  the  "  good  "  roads 
in  England  were  in  reality  little  better  than  broad 
cart  tracks,  so  that  heavy  horses  were  largely  in 
demand.  In  consequence  of  this  the  prices  paid 
for  a  good  team  of  horses  were  in  many  instances 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  animals'  true  worth. 
By  this  time,  too,  public  stages  were  already 
being  started  on  the  highroads,  and  the  com- 
petition this  gave  rise  to  soon  sent  up  by  leaps 
and  bounds  the  value  of  great  horses  well  broken 
to  harness. 


236  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Of  these  stages  the  first  was  started  probably 
about  the  year  1670,  and  its  weight  when  empty 
must  have  been  enormous,  every  part  being  made 
of  solid  timber  bound  with  strips  of  iron.  The 
" speed"  at  which  it  travelled — so  far  as  one  can 
gather  from  the  early  descriptive  records  of  the 
progress  of  the  pioneer  stage — must  have  been 
approximately  three  or  four  miles  an  hour,  upon 
an  average,  or  even  less. 

An  excellent  reproduction  of  the  early  type  of 
the  English  great  horse  is  to  be  seen  in  Dublin 
in  the  famous  statue  of  William  III.  on  horse- 
back. The  type  of  horse  shown  is  probably  the 
exact  type  that  was  popular  not  merely  in  William 
III.'s  reign,  but  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
century  before  he  ascended  the  throne. 

True,  in  that  statue  the  king  is  garbed  like  an 
ancient  Roman,  the  reason  being — I  take  the 
following  statement  from  several  Irish  jarveys, 
and  disclaim  all  responsibility  for  its  alleged 
accuracy — that  King  William  adored  a  foreigner 
and  tried  always  to  look  like  one!  It  was, 
indeed,  a  jarvey  who  remarked  as  we  drove 
past :  "  Sure,  and  it  is  in  hunting  kit  he  should 
be,  and  on  one  of  Pat  Mecreedy's  hundred-guinea 
leppers."  He  appeared  to  be  convulsed  with 
mirth  at  the  bare  thought  that  the  hero  of  the 
Boyne  should  have  been  depicted  mounted  upon 
a  cart  horse. 

Some   even   among   our   historians,   however, 


OPPOSITION   TO   STAGE   COACHES     237 

have  averred  that  this  horse  is  wrongly  propor- 
tioned. Personally  I  incline  to  the  belief  that  the 
animal  is  in  every  detail  true  to  life,  and  not  many 
years  ago  the  late  Viscount  Powerscourt  declared 
that  he  himself  had  seen  used  in  parts  of  Holland 
horses  that  in  every  respect  resembled  this  animal 
of  King  William's  statue. 

Is  it  not  likely,  therefore,  that  William  III. 
may  have  been  in  the  habit  of  riding  a  Dutch 
horse,  and  that  the  sculptor  copied  this  horse 
quite  faithfully  ? 

Certainly  if  the  pictures  of  the  period  are  to  be 
trusted  for  accuracy,  soon  after  the  overthrow  of 
James  II.  by  William  of  Orange  there  were  horses 
in  plenty  of  almost  exactly  this  type  to  be  seen  in 
England.  Also  the  harness  that  was  worn  by 
many  of  the  Dutch  horses  shown  in  the  pictures 
resembled  the  harness  that  was  in  use  among 
followers  of  William  III.,  more  especially  the 
parts  we  mean  to  indicate  when  we  speak  of  a 
horse's  trappings. 

Even  the  bridles  greatly  resembled  one  another 
in  some  instances. 


Bearing  directly  upon  the  story  of  the  horse 
in  history  are  the  descriptions  that  have  been 
handed  down  to  us  of  the  almost  frantic  op- 
position that  met  the  introduction  of  the  stage 


238  THE   HORSE  IN   HISTORY 

coach  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

In  some  respects  these  descriptions  recall  vividly 
to  mind  the  rabid  antagonism  some  two  centuries 
later  to  the  introduction  of  the  steam  engine,  not 
to  speak  of  the  objections  that  are  still  raised  by 
a  proportion  of  the  community  to  the  general 
adoption  of  automobilism. 

Prior  to  the  introduction  of  the  stage  coach  into 
England  a  four-wheeled  carriage  with  a  long,  low 
body  had  been  employed  to  convey  the  general 
public  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another, 
and  when  the  stage  coach  first  arrived  many 
of  our  wiseacres  were  quick  to  prophesy  that  the 
death-knell  of  the  nation's  greatness  had  in  con- 
sequence been  sounded ! 

Perhaps  one  of  the  stoutest  of  the  opponents  of 
reform  in  this  respect  was  a  certain  Mr  Cressett, 
of  Charterhouse,  who  in  the  year  1662  openly  and 
in  very  straightforward  language  affirmed  that  the 
adoption  of  the  stage  coach  must  "entirely  ruin 
the  country,"  and  who  in  that  year  wrote  a  vigor- 
ous tract,  in  which  he  explained  entirely  to  his 
satisfaction  —  also,  apparently,  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  his  partisans — that  the  amount  of  harm 
the  introduction  of  road  coaching  must  inevit- 
ably cause  to  the  community  at  large  would  be 
enormous. 

His  remarks,  too  voluminous  to  reprint  in  ex- 
tenso,  contain  in  one  place  the  observation  that 


MR   CRESSETT'S   THEORY  239 

"  by  this  rapid  mode  of  travelling" — at  the  period 
in  which  he  wrote  it  took  approximately  three 
days  to  get  from  London  to  Dover,  even  in  fine 
weather — "  gentlemen  will  come  to  London 
upon  the  slightest  pretext,  which  but  for  these 
abominable  coaches  they  would  not  do  but  upon 
urgent  necessity." 

Nor  would  the  impending  evil,  in  his  opinion, 
end  there,  for,  lashing  himself  gradually  into  a 
fury,  he  went  on  to  maintain  that  "the  gentle- 
men's wives "  would  come  too,  and  that  no 
sooner  would  they  find  themselves  in  London 
than  they  would  "get  fine  clothes,  go  to  plays 
and  treats,  and  by  these  means  get  such  a  habit 
of  idleness  and  love  for  pleasure  that  they  would 
be  uneasy  ever  after." 

Poor  Mr  Cressett ! 

Surely  he  must  have  been  an  ancestor,  or  at 
the  least  some  early  relative,  of  the  notorious  Mr 
Wightman  who,  just  before  the  first  London  and 
Brighton  railway  was  laid  down,  wrote  a  book 
in  which  he  "proved"  beyond  refutation  that  no 
locomotive  steam  engine  could  by  any  possibility 
be  propelled  at  a  speed  greater  than  about  half  the 
speed  of  the  fastest  of  the  coaches  then  on  the  road! 

We  smile  indulgently  at  all  this  now,  yet, 
when  all  is  said,  have  we  changed  so  very  greatly 
since  those  dark  and  peculiar  ages — since  the 
epoch  that  we  now  refer  to  so  complacently 
as  "  the  good  old  times  "  ?  (sic). 


240  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

The  narratives  of  the  remarkable  experiences 
of  many  of  the  travellers  in  those  early  coaches 
would  make  up  almost  enough  letterpress  to  fill 
a  volume.  For  from  the  very  outset  the  public 
stages  became  the  unlawful  prey  of  half  the 
rascals  with  which  a  vast  tract  of  the  whole  of 
England  at  that  time  teemed.  Coaches  were 
plundered  almost  daily,  and  while  sometimes 
blood  was  spilt  intentionally,  often  this  happened 
rather  by  accident. 

Charles  II.,  who  used  his  influence  to  help  on 
the  development  of  the  stage  coach,  appears  at 
times  to  have  become  frankly  impatient  with  the 
ultra-conservatism  of  the  bulk  of  his  nobility  and 
of  the  aristocracy  who  strove  hard  to  check  the 
progress  of  the  new  form  of  locomotion. 

Whatever  Charles's  shortcomings  may  have 
been — and  we  know  that  he  had  many — he  had 
enough  of  nous  to  be  able  to  foresee  the  enor- 
mous advantages  that  would  be  derived  from  the 
general  adoption  of  the  public  stage. 

Consequently  he  encouraged  the  importation 
of  stallions  and  the  breeding  of  animals  of  the 
stamp  best  adapted  for  coach  work. 

Himself  a  finished  whip,  most  likely,  he  desired 
that  all  his  nobles  should  emulate  his  example  by 
learning  to  drive  well,  though  driving  in  those 
days  was  a  form  of  amusement  comparatively 
seldom  indulged  in  by  the  well-to-do,  who,  as 
we  are  told,  preferred  being  driven  by  postillions. 


CHARLES  II.  FAVOURS  STAGE  COACHES  241 

Before  Prince  Charles's  proclamation,  however, 
the  ten  years  of  the  Commonwealth's  sway  had  to 
intervene,  during  which  time  the  horse's  progress 
in  this  country  suffered  a  set-back  from  the  effects 
of  which  it  did  not  immediately  recover. 

The  beginning  of  the  horse's  decline  in  public 
favour  may  be  said  to  have  dated  from  4th  Janu- 
ary 1651,  on  which  day  a  report  was  drawn  up 
— to  be  soon  afterwards  presented  to  Parliament 
— demanding  that  horse  races,  hunting,  hawk- 
ing matches  and  football  playing  be  at  once 
suppressed,  the  plea  in  favour  of  this  radical 
reform  being  that  frequently  political  meetings 
were  convened  by  enemies  of  the  Commonwealth 
under  the  veil  of  race  meetings  and  similar  social 
gatherings. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Commonwealth's  "  ordinance  to  prohibit  horse  racing  " — 
Revival  of  racing  under  Charles  II. — The  King  a  finished  horse- 
man— The  figure  of  Britannia — The  Royal  Mares — Formation  of 
the  thoroughbred  stud — Thomas  Shadwell's  cynical  description  of 
life  at  Newmarket — Spread  of  horse  racing  in  Ireland — Jockeys  at 
Newmarket  entertained  by  Charles  II. — Sir  Robert  Carr  ;  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth's  connection  with  the  Turf — Annual  charge  for 
horses  of  the  royal  household,  ,£16,640 — Newmarket  under  the 
regime  of  the  Merry  Monarch  ;  the  Duke  of  Buckingham 

npHOUGH  it  soon  became  evident  that  the 
•^  Commonwealth  was  determined  to  oppose, 
tooth  and  nail,  any  step  that  might  in  the  least 
tend  to  keep  alive  the  interest  in  horse  racing  and 
horse  breeding  that  for  many  years  had  grown  up  so 
steadily  throughout  almost  the  length  and  breadth 
of  England,  not  until  the  3rd  July  1654  did  the 
Government  finally  decide  to  introduce  "an  ordi- 
nance to  prohibit  horse  racing."  This  ordinance 
was  duly  passed,  and  the  result  may  well  be 
imagined. 

For  without  further  parley  almost  every  race- 
course in  England  was  closed,  thousands  of  men 
of  many  different  grades  being  thereby  at  once 
thrown  out  of  employment.  Owners  of  valuable 
thoroughbreds  lost  immense  sums,  for,  practi- 
cally without  warning,  they  found  the  order 

242 


QUALITIES    OF   THE   BARB          243 

thrust  upon  them  and  so  were  obliged  to  sell 
their  racing  stock  for  whatever  sum  it  would 
fetch  in  the  open  market. 

In  this  connection  Cromwell,  who  himself  had 
for  many  years  owned  race  horses  and  been  very 
fond  of  racing,  suffered  with  the  rest,  though 
both  he  and  his  adherents  are  said  to  have  de- 
clared that  they  willingly  gave  up  their  horses 
"  for  the  good  of  the  cause  they  had  at  heart." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  many  valuable 
sires  were  imported  into  England  about  the  time 
that  Cromwell  was  practically  in  power,  and  one 
of  them,  "a  south-eastern  horse  named  White 
Turk,"  apparently  was  brought  over  by  Crom- 
well's own  stud  groom. 

Several  of  the  early  records  contain  interesting 
descriptions  of  the  sires  that  were  imported  at 
about  this  time.  Mr  William  Cavendish,  after- 
wards Duke  of  Newcastle,  writing  about  the  year 
1658,  tells  us  that  the  Turkish  horse  of  the  period 
was  a  tall  animal,  "  but  of  unequal  shape,"  and 
that  though  "  remarkably  beautiful,  very  active, 
with  plenty  of  bone  and  excellent  wind,"  it  rarely 
had  a  good  mouth. 

"The  Barb,"  he  writes  elsewhere,  "possesses 
a  superb  and  high  action,  is  an  excellent  trotter 
and  galloper,  and  very  active  when  in  motion. 
Although  generally  not  so  strong  as  other  breeds, 
when  well  chosen  I  do  not  know  a  more  noble  horse, 
and  I  have  read  strange  tales  of  their  courage." 


244  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

The  Barbs  came  of  course  from  Barbary,  the 
best  of  them  from  Morocco,  Fez,  and  the  adjacent 
districts,  and  some  from  the  interior  of  Tripoli. 
Even  the  first  to  be  imported  were  said  to  be 
better  shaped  than  any  horses  that  had  been  seen 
before  in  this  country,  and  to  have,  in  addition, 
excellent  action  by  nature. 

From  what  can  be  ascertained  at  this  date,  the 
pure  Arabian  steed  seldom,  if  ever,  stood  higher 
than  fourteen  and  a  half  hands,  and  rarely  or 
never  became  a  roarer.  In  all  probability  many 
even  of  the  finest  Arabian  horses  stood  but  four- 
teen hands  high,  while  plenty  must  have  been 
smaller  still — say  thirteen  two  or  even  thirteen 
one. 

This  is  worth  remembering  when  we  know  that 
nearly  every  horse  that  has  established  a  reputa- 
tion on  the  English  Turf  has  been  of  Eastern 
descent. 

Probably  the  best  of  the  Turkish  horses  were 
descended  from  the  horses  of  Arabia  and  of 
Persia,  though  the  former  were  for  the  most  part 
taller,  and  generally  "  bigger  built,"  besides  being 
world  renowned  for  their  remarkable  docility. 


At  last  the  Commonwealth  came  to  an  end, 
and  with  the  accession  of  Charles  II.  to  the 
throne  "the  whole  of  England,"  to  quote  the 


REVIVAL   OF   HORSE  RACING        245 

sentence  of  a  contemporary  chronicler,  "  seemed 
to  open  its  lungs  and  breathe  again." 

For  during  the  ten  years  of  the  great  Common- 
wealth the  Turf  had  to  all  intents  become  extinct 
in  England.  The  racecourses  were ''overgrown 
and  choked,"  some  had  been  built  upon,  others 
had  been  converted  into  what  purported  to  be 
pleasure  grounds — "spaces  for  the  recreation  of 
the  multitude." 

But  apparently  the  multitude  preferred  the 
spaces  as  they  had  been  in  the  time  of  Charles  I., 
for  no  sooner  did  it  become  known  that  the  more 
important  of  the  race  meetings  that  had  been 
abandoned  were  about  to  be  revived  than  "the 
people  rejoiced  greatly  and  gave  vent  to  de- 
monstration." 

In  a  surprisingly  short  time  race  horses  seemed 
to  spring  up  out  of  nowhere,  some  in  such  good 
fettle,  comparatively — when  it  is  borne  in  mind 
that  the  race  horse  was  supposed  to  have  become 
practically  extinct  during  the  Commonwealth's 
regime — that,  as  one  historian  has  it,  the  severity 
of  the  laws  that  had  been  passed  for  the  sup- 
pression of  horse  racing,  and  indirectly  of  race 
horses,  must  clearly  have  been  evaded  in  several 
parts  of  this  country. 

Thus  it  comes  that  soon  after  the  Restoration 
we  read  of  races  being  run  for  silver  bells  and 
other  prizes  at  Croydon,  at  Theobald's,  at 
Chester  and  many  other  places  that  had  been 


246  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

important  racing  centres  before  the  Common- 
wealth. 

"  Though  race  horses  were  few  at  the  time 
of  Charles  II.'s  accession,"  observes  one  writer, 
"and  none  had  eaten  bread  for  years  "  (about  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  race  horses 
were  trained  largely  on  bread),  ''and  these  had 
languished  in  neglect,  at  the  Restoration  they 
emerged  from  their  obscurity  when  the  penal 
disabilities  collapsed  to  which  the  Turf  was  sub- 
jected by  the  Puritans. 

"The  revival  of  horse  racing  was  almost 
magical  in  its  effects.  Thus  we  find  the  Turf  rising 
like  a  Phcenix  from  its  ashes  on  the  accession  of 
Charles  II.,  to  be  thoroughly  reinstated  as  our 
great  national  pastime  during  the  Merry  Mon- 
arch's reign. 

"To  this  resuscitation  the  king  extended  his 
powerful  patronage  and  support.  His  love  of 
the  equine  race  is  typified  in  the  soubriquet  by 
which  he  was  popularly  known,  namely  '  Old 
Rowley,'  the  name  of  his  favourite  hack.  It  is 
possible  that  among  all  our  sovereigns,  with  the 
exception,  perhaps,  of  Richard  II.,  King  Charles 
II.  alone  rode  his  horses  first  past  the  winning 
post.  He  was,  indeed,  a  thorough  English 
sportsman  who  could  hold  his  own  against  all 
comers  in  the  chases,  on  the  racecourse  and  so 


on." 


The  above  description  approximately  sums  up 


CHARLES   II.'S   HORSEMANSHIP      247 

the  Merry  Monarch  so  far  as  his  fondness  for 
horses  and  horse  racing  has  to  do  with  this  history. 
Every  inch  a  horseman,  he  appears  to  have 
been  gifted  with  a  singular  aptitude  for  control- 
ling almost  any  animal  he  mounted,  and  to  have 
developed  in  a  high  degree  the  instinct,  or 
whatever  it  may  be,  that  to-day  we  speak  of  as 
the  power  of  judging  pace  in  race  riding. 

Endowed  with  nerve,  also  with  physical  courage 
in  abundance,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  king 
should  have  been  looked  upon  by  many  of  his 
courtiers  almost  as  a  demigod  when  first  he 
ascended  the  throne,  and  that  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  who  had  trained  him  to  horseman- 
ship, should  openly  have  expressed  himself  as 
immensely  proud  of  his  pupil  and  his  pupil's  skill. 

In  the  principal  race  at  Chester  the  horses 
used  to  run  five  times  round  the  Roody.  It  was 
upon  a  horse  running  in  this  race  that  Charles 
once  staked  and  lost  a  small  fortune.  The  meet- 
ings he  most  preferred,  however,  probably  were 
those  held  periodically  at  Newmarket,  where  to 
this  day  the  famous  Rowley  Mile  recalls  to 
memory  the  seventeenth-century's  cheeriest 
monarch,  a  king  to  whom  horse  racing  in  this 
country  still  owes  so  much. 

It  was,  indeed,  King  Charles  II.  who  almost 
entirely  rebuilt  the  stand  at  Newmarket  after  the 
original  one  had  been  damaged  beyond  repair 
during  the  progress  of  the  Civil  War,  It  is  said 


248  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

that  the  old  race  stand  was  besieged  on  at  least 
three  separate  occasions  during  that  long  and 
bloody  conflict. 

While  a  certain  historic  race  meeting  at  New- 
market was  in  progress,  Philip  Rotier,  the  famous 
sculptor,  availed  himself  of  an  unexpected  oppor- 
tunity— an  opportunity  for  which  he  had  long 
waited — to  make  a  sketch  of  the  beautiful  Miss 
Stuart,  who  was  destined  to  become  in  the  year 
1667  tne  third  wife  of  the  third  Duke  of 
Richmond. 

Miss  Stuart's  name  was  at  that  time  in  every- 
body's mouth,  the  exquisite  loveliness  of  her  face 
being  equalled,  so  it  was  said,  only  by  the  mould- 
ing of  her  figure  and  the  irresistible  fascination 
of  her  voice  and  manner.  It  was  this  unfinished 
portrait  by  Philip  Rotier  that  was  subsequently 
to  develop  into  the  figure  that  to-day  we  see 
upon  every  copper  coin — the  figure  of  Britannia 
with  her  trident. 

"So  exact  was  the  likeness,"  says  Felton,  in 
his  notes  on  Waller,  "that  no  one  who  had  ever 
seen  her  Grace  could  mistake  who  had  sat  for 
Britannia." 

How  rapidly  the  Turf  must  have  sprung  into 
life  once  more  upon  Charles  II.'s  accession  to 
the  throne  of  England  may  be  gathered  from  the 
statement  that  within  six  years  after  the  date  of 
his  coronation,  "  the  glory  of  Newmarket  had 
again  eclipsed  itself."  Yet  apparently  the  country's 


CHARLES   II.'S   HORSEMANSHIP      249 

prosperity  did  not  directly  benefit.  The  nobles 
and  the  wealthy  classes  seemed  determined  at 
any  and  every  cost  to  warm  both  hands  at  the 
fire  of  life  in  the  best  and  worst  meaning  of  that 
hackneyed  phrase.  In  Pope's  "  Imitation  of 
Horace,"  the  statement  is  made  quite  bluntly  : — 

"  In  days  of  ease,  when  now  the  weary  sword 
Was  sheathed,  and  luxury  with  Charles  restored, 
In  every  taste  of  foreign  courts  improved, 
All,  by  the  King's  example,  lived  and  loved. 
Then  peers  grew  proud  in  horsemanship  t'excell — 
Newmarket's  glory  rose,  as  Britain's  fell." 

Wherever  in  the  early  histories  and  records 
mention  is  made  of  Charles's  horsemanship,  we 
find  also  some  allusion  to  William  Cavendish, 
afterwards  to  become  Duke  of  Newcastle,  and 
credit  for  Charles's  skill  is  attributed  in  a  great 
measure  to  him. 

Further  we  learn  that  at  the  age  of  ten  "  His 
Majesty's  capacity  was  such  that  he  would  ride 
leaping  horses,  and  such  as  would  overthrow 
others,  and  manage  them  with  the  greatest  skill 
and  dexterity,  to  the  admiration  of  all  who  beheld 
him." 

Indeed  in  this  one  respect  he  must  at  about 
that  period  of  his  life  have  resembled  the  great 
Alexander,  for  his  determination  and  self-con- 
fidence when  he  was  mounted  on  horseback  were 
alike  amazing.  Upon  more  than  one  occasion  he 


250  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

expressed  himself  ready  to  ride  for  a  wager  any 
horse  that  might  be  brought  to  him,  and,  if  need 
be,  to  ride  it  bareback. 

In  his  after  life,  as  we  know,  this  strength  of 
will  of  his  grew  gradually  into  senseless  obstinacy, 
yet  he  never  lost  his  nerve  for  riding  over  a 
country,  a  fact  the  more  remarkable  when  we 
reflect  upon  the  sort  of  life  he  came  to  lead  as 
he  grew  older. 

The  descriptions  we  have  of  the  race  horses  he 
bred  are  somewhat  contradictory  and  must  there- 
fore be  received  with  caution.  That  he  imported 
many  fine  mares  from  Barbary  is  certain,  also  it  is 
certain  that  at  regular  intervals  he  sent  abroad 
competent  judges  with  instructions  that  they 
should  secure  for  him,  regardless  of  cost,  the 
best  animals  obtainable. 

From  among  the  best  of  these  were  selected 
the  stud  that  came  afterwards  to  be  known  as  the 
Royal  Mares,  a  designation  they  bear  in  the 
stud-book  to  this  day.  The  dam  of  the  famous 
Dodsworth  —  one  of  the  earliest  of  all  our 
thoroughbreds — was  included  in  the  royal  stud, 
and  its  pedigree  has  been  authenticated  beyond 
dispute. 

Emphatically  Charles  II.  did  more  to  encourage 
horse  racing  than  any  other  monarch  after  Henry 
VIII.  had  done,  and  by  comparison  he  did  much 
more  than  Henry  VIII.  by  any  possibility  could 
have  done,  the  very  best  racing  in  Henry's  reign 


THOMAS   SHAD  WELL'S   CYNICISM     251 

being  quite  inferior  to  the  sport  shown  in  the 
reign  of  the  Merry  Monarch. 

And  by  every  means  that  lay  in  his  power  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle  abetted  Charles.  The  duke 
himself,  soon  after  the  Restoration,  sank  a  con- 
siderable sum  in  the  purchase  of  fresh  racing 
stock  to  add  to  his  stud,  already  a  large  one. 
And  thus  the  foundation  of  the  thoroughbred  stud 
of  modern  times  may  be  said  to  date  practically 
from  about  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

Thomas  Shadwell,  the  famous  playwright,  who, 
born  in  1642,  lived  for  half-a-century,  alludes  in 
several  of  his  dramatic  works  to  "  the  great  wave 
of  passionate  devotion  to  vices  of  various  kinds  " 
that  seemed  to  roll  gradually  over  the  whole  of 
England  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  while 
special  reference  is  made  to  the  all-absorbing  in- 
terest taken  in  the  Turf  while  the  Merry  Monarch 
was  on  the  throne. 

Speaking  of  Newmarket  in  particular,  "  there 
a  man  is  never  idle,"  he  makes  one  of  his  char- 
acters cynically  observe,  "  for  we  make  visits  to 
horses,  and  talk  with  grooms,  riders  and  cock- 
keepers,  and  saunter  in  the  Heath  all  the  fore- 
noon. 

4 'Then  we  dine,  and  never  talk  a  word  but  of 
dogs,  cocks  and  horses. 

"Then  we  saunter  into  the  Heath  again,  then 
to  a  cock-match,  then  to  a  play  in  a  barn,  then  to 


252  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

supper,  and  never  speak  a  word  but  of  dogs, 
cocks  and  horses  again. 

"  Then  to  the  Groom  Porters,  where  you  may 
play  all  night.  Oh,  'tis  a  heavenly  life !  We 
are  never,  never  tired ! " 

Seeing  what  keen  and  thorough  sportsmen  the 
Irish  are,  as  a  body,  one  is  rather  surprised  to 
learn  that  until  towards  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  horse  racing  was  almost  unknown 
in  Ireland.  No  sooner  had  it  been  introduced, 
however,  than  it  began  to  develop  with  great 
rapidity,  so  that  within  a  few  years  it  spread  into 
many  parts  of  the  island  and  we  hear  of  race 
meeting  after  race  meeting  being  organised. 

For  horse  racing  seemed  to  suit  the  tempera- 
ment of  the  Irish  people  as  no  other  form  of 
sport  had  done.  From  the  first  the  Irish 
must  have  devoted  much  time  and  attention  to 
race  horse  breeding,  and  though  their  facilities 
for  obtaining  the  services  of  the  best  stallions 
were  fewer  than  the  facilities  afforded  to  the 
English  breeders,  they  yet  succeeded  in  rearing 
a  number  of  useful  animals,  while  plenty  of 
their  race  meetings  soon  compared  favourably 
with  some  of  the  best  meetings  that  were  held  in 
England  at  about  the  same  period. 

But  few  particulars  are  extant  of  the  races  in 
which  King  Charles  himself  rode,  though  several 
of  the  earlier  writers  inform  us  that  he  "carried 
all  before  him."  In  a  despatch  from  Sir  Robert 


CHARLES   II.   ENTERTAINS   JOCKEYS     253 

Carr,  dated  the  24th  day  of  March  1675, 
we  read  that  "  Yesterday  his  majestic  rode 
himself  three  heats  and  a  course  and  won 
the  Plate,  all  fower  were  hard  and  nere  run, 
and  I  doe  assure  you  the  King  wonn  by  good 
Horseman  Ship." 

Descriptions  are  to  be  found  elsewhere  of  a  fox 
hunt  in  which  the  king  took  part.  It  took  place 
some  twenty  miles  from  Newmarket.  That  was 
in  1680,  and  apparently  no  fox  hunt  in  King 
Charles's  reign  had  before  been  described  in 
writing. 

Yet  the  king,  though  partial  to  hunting,  was 
undoubtedly  much  fonder  of  racing.  It  was  in 
this  year — the  year  1680 — that  he  entertained  at 
Newmarket  the  vice-chancellor  and  the  dons  of 
the  University  of  Cambridge,  and,  as  well,  all 
the  jockeys  who  had  ridden  at  the  meeting. 

Whether  vice  -  chancellor,  dons  and  jockeys 
were  all  entertained  by  the  king  at  the  same 
time  is  not  stated,  though  we  are  led  to  infer 
that  they  must  have  been.  Charles,  as  students 
of  history  know,  was  cosmopolitan  to  the  back- 
bone, and  not  ashamed  of  the  fact.  Ever  a 
practical  joker,  he  is  known  to  have  taken  delight 
that  was  almost  boyish  in  bringing  together  an 
assemblage  of  persons  whose  sentiments,  views 
and  tastes  he  knew  to  be  in  every  way  dissimilar. 

The  companionship  of  jockeys  appealed  to  him 
at  all  times,  and  the  year  after  he  had  entertained 


254  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

those  at  Newmarket  we  find  him  at  supper  with 
the  Duke  of  Albemarle,  "and  all  the  jockeys 
with  them."  During  the  progress  of  this  meal 
Sir  Robert  Carr  and  the  king  arranged  several 
matches  in  which  their  respective  horses  were  to 
be  ridden  by  the  jockey  each  should  nominate. 
That  Sir  Robert  came  badly  out  of  the  affair 
may  be  gathered  from  the  statement  that  in  a 
single  day  he  lost  between  ^5000  and  ^6000 
"and  became  greatly  enraged" — a  breach  of 
etiquette  that  the  king  did  not  forget,  and  that 
he  never  forgave. 

A  despatch  from  Lord  Conway,  dated  the  5th 
April  1682,  contains  a  descriptive  account  of  a 
false  start  that  took  place  in  one  of  the  races  at 
Newmarket  owing  apparently  to  a  curious  blunder 
on  the  part  of  the  starter. 

"  Here  hapned  yesterday,"  Lord  Conway 
writes,  "a  dispute  upon  the  greatest  point  of 
Criticall  learning  that  was  ever  known  at  New- 
Market,  A  Match  between  a  Horse  of  Sir  Rob  : 
Car's,  and  a  Gelding  of  Sir  Rob  :  Geeres,  for  a 
mile  and  a  halfe  only,  had  engaged  all  the  Court 
in  many  thousand  pounds,  much  depending  in 
so  short  a  course  to  haue  them  start  fairly. 

"Mr  Griffin  was  appointed  to  start  them. 
When  he  saw  them  equall  he  sayd  Goe,  and 
presently  he  cryed  out  Stay.  One  went  off,  and 
run  through  the  Course  and  claims  his  money, 
the  other  never  stird  at  all. 


THE   DUKE   OF   MONMOUTH        255 

"  Now  possibly  you  may  say  that  this  was 
not  a  fayre  starting,  but  the  critics  say  after  the 
word  Goe  was  out  of  his  mouth  his  commission 
was  determined,  and  it  was  illegall  for  him  to 
say  Stay.  I  suppose  there  will  be  Volumes 
written  upon  this  Subject ;  'tis  all  refered  to 
his  Majesty's  Judgment,  who  hath  not  yet  de- 
termined it." 

Another  staunch  supporter  of  horse  racing 
in  Charles  II.'s  reign  was  the  ill-starred  Duke 
of  Monmouth,  whose  career  on  the  English  Turf 
ended  abruptly  when  in  1682  he  was  practically 
sent  abroad  as  an  exile. 

Early  in  the  following  year,  however,  the  idea 
occurred  to  Louis  XIV.  that  as  horse  racing  had 
become  so  popular  in  England  he  would  like  to 
make  it  the  national  pastime  of  France  also.  In 
order  to  foster  public  interest  in  the  turf,  there- 
fore, he  began  by  offering  a  plate  valued  at 
1000  pistoles  to  be  run  for  at  Echere,  near  St 
Germain. 

The  event  attracted,  as  he  had  expected  it  would, 
much  attention,  not  only  throughout  France,  but 
in  several  other  European  countries  as  well,  so 
that  in  the  end  some  of  the  finest  horses  to  be 
found  anywhere  in  Europe  were  entered  for  the 
race. 

All  went  well  until  a  short  time  before  the  date 
of  the  race,  when  a  rumour  spread  mysteriously 
that  a  gelding  owned  by  the  Hon.  Thomas 


256  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Wharton  had  been  privately  backed  very  heavily 
by  a  number  of  wealthy  Englishmen. 

At  first  the  report  was  generally  disbelieved. 
Then  suddenly  it  became  known  that  the  famous 
Duke  of  Monmouth  was  to  ride  the  "dark" 
horse  in  the  big  race,  and  at  once  the  owners  of 
the  foreign  favourites  became  seriously  alarmed. 

That  they  had  good  ground  for  their  alarm 
was  soon  proved  by  the  duke's  steering  the 
English  horse  to  victory,  apparently  with  great 
ease. 

Immediately,  so  we  are  told,  Louis  XIV.  cried 
out  in  an  access  of  enthusiasm  that  he  must 
obtain  possession  of  Wharton's  horse  at  any  cost. 
Upon  Wharton's  informing  him  that  the  horse 
was  not  for  sale,  Louis  immediately  offered  to 
pay  "the  animal's  weight  in  gold."  Thereupon 
Wharton  relented — though  not  in  the  way  that 
Louis  had  expected  him  to  : 

"I  will  not  sell  the  horse,"  he  said,  "no,  not 
even  for  its  weight  in  gold.  If,  however,  your 
Majesty  will  do  me  the  honour  to  accept  it  as  a 

gift — - 

But  so  generous  a  proposal  Louis  flatly  declined 
to  entertain,  and  eventually  the  horse  did  not 
change  hands  at  all.  For  some  weeks  after- 
wards the  principal  topic  of  conversation  through- 
out France  and  part  of  England  was  the  great 
race.  Indeed  it  is  probable  that  this  single  race 
and  the  talk  that  followed  it  served  to  stimulate 


THE    DUKE    OF    SCHONBERG    ON    A    TYPICAL    CHARGER    OK    THE    SEVENTKKNTH    C1NTURY 
After  a  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller 


ANNUAL  CHARGE  FOR  ROYAL  HORSES    257 

in  France  a  zest  for  the  sport  that  became  far 
keener  than  even  Louis  XIV.  had  deemed  would 
ever  be  possible. 

Among  the  more  prominent  of  the  race  horse's 
progenitors  in  the  seventeenth  century  were  the 
Small  Bay  Arabian,  imported  by  James  I.  ;  Bur- 
ton's Barb  Mare  ;  the  Helmsley  or  Buckingham 
Turk,  owned  by  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  ;  and 
of  course  Charles  II.'s  Dodsworth,  a  well-shaped, 
natural  Barb,  though  foaled  in  England  about  the 
year  1670. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  Royal 
Mares,  the  majority  of  which  were  brought  over 
from  Tangiers  about  the  year  1669.  Towards 
the  beginning  of  Charles  II.'s  reign  the  annual 
charge  for  the  horses  of  the  king  and  queen 
and  those  of  the  officers  of  the  royal  household 
was  fixed  at  £  16,640 — a  sum  subsequently  de- 
nounced by  the  king's  enemies  as  "  extravagant 
beyond  belief." 

That  it  was  a  considerable  charge  to  make  all 
must  admit,  yet  it  was  not  necessarily  extravagant 
beyond  measure.  For  in  an  age  when  outward 
ostentation  imparted  to  the  court  a  sort  of  cachet, 
an  enormous  stud  of  horses,  and  those  the  best 
obtainable,  and  in  addition  innumerable  costly 
trappings,  were  in  a  sense  necessities  -  -  the 
guarantee  and  stock-in-trade,  so  to  speak,  of  a 
court  anxious  to  gain  the  world's  applause  and 
approval,  and  indirectly  the  support  of  other 


258  THE    HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

powerful  European  nations  should  war  break  out, 
as  in  King  Charles's  reign  it  might  well  have 
done  at  almost  any  time. 

Indeed  had  Charles's  court  been  indifferently 
horsed,  and  the  king  shown  signs  of  reducing  his 
personal  expenditure — in  other  words,  had  the 
trumpets  metaphorically  been  blown  less  blat- 
antly— other  European  powers  would  probably 
have  looked  up  to  England  with  less  respect. 

Full  well  Charles  must  have  known  this,  for 
in  his  way  he  was  thoroughly  versed  in  the  art  of 
what  is  sometimes  called  " international  finessing." 
His  Government  knew  it  better  still,  with  the 
result  that  the  Government  "played  up  to  the 
king  "  on  the  lines  adopted  by  the  king  in  playing 
up  to  the  Government — both  knew  that  extrava- 
gance and  display  formed  the  note  of  the  age, 
and  both  struck  the  note  firmly  with  a  foot  on 
the  loud  pedal. 

And  thus  in  the  reign  of  the  Merry  Monarch 
did  the  practice  that  we  now  sometimes  speak 
of  as  "bluffing"  develop  into  a  sort  of  art  and 
come  to  be  cultivated  carefully. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  seventeenth  century 
Newmarket  must  truly  have  been  one  of  the 
gayest  places  in  England,  at  anyrate  when  race 
meetings  were  being  held  there,  for  it  was  not 
unusual  for  the  entire  court  and  cabinet  to  travel 
down  from  London  on  such  occasions,  when 
"jewellers  and  milliners,  players  and  fiddlers, 


NEWMARKET   UNDER   CHARLES   II.     259 

venal  wits  and  venal  beauties  would  follow  in 
crowds. 

Upon  such  occasions  the  streets,  we  are  told, 
were  made  impassable  by  coaches  and  six.  "  In 
the  places  of  public  resort  peers  flirted  with 
maids  of  honour,  while  officers  of  the  Life  Guards, 
all  plumes  and  gold  lace,  jostled  professors  in 
teachers'  caps  and  black  gowns,  for  from  the 
neighbouring  University  of  Cambridge  there 
always  came  high  functionaries  with  loyal  ad- 
dresses, and  the  University  would  select  her 
ablest  theologians  to  preach  before  the  sovereign 
and  his  splendid  retinue." 

Whether  those  able  theologians  were  valued 
at  their  true  worth  may  be  gathered  from  a 
further  description  in  which  we  learn  that  during 
the  wildest  days  of  the  Restoration  "  the  most 
learned  and  eloquent  divine  might  fail  to  draw 
a  fashionable  audience,  particularly  if  Buckingham 
had  announced  his  intention  of  holding  forth,  for 
sometimes  his  Grace  would  enliven  the  dullness 
of  the  Sunday  morning  by  addressing  to  the 
bevy  of  fine  gentlemen  and  fine  ladies  a  ribald 
exhortation  which  he  called  a  sermon.'* 

The  court  of  King  William,  however,  proved 
more  decent,  and  then  the  Academic  dignitaries 
were  treated  with  marked  respect.  "Thus  with 
lords  and  ladies  from  St  James's  and  Soho,  and 
with  doctors  from  Trinity  College  and  King's 
College,  were  mingled  the  provincial  aristo 


260  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

cracy,  fox-hunting  squires  and  their  rosy-cheeked 
daughters,  who  had  come  in  queer-looking  family 
coaches  drawn  by  cart  horses  from  the  remotest 
parishes  of  three  or  four  counties  to  see  their 
Sovereign. 

"  The  Heath  was  fringed  by  a  wild,  gipsy-like 
camp  of  vast  extent.  For  the  hope  of  being  able 
to  feed  on  the  leavings  of  many  sumptuous  tables, 
and  to  pick  up  some  of  the  guineas  and  crowns 
which  the  spendthrifts  of  London  were  throwing 
about,  attracted  thousands  of  peasants  from  a 
circle  of  many  miles." 


CHAPTER  IV 

Arrival  of  the  Byerley  Turk — Roman  Catholics  forbidden  to  own 
a  horse  worth  over  ,£5 — Henry  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon,  on  the 
manners  of  the  age  —  King  William  1 1 1  .'s  death  due  to  a 
riding  accident — The  Duke  of  Cumberland's  breeding  establish- 
ment in  Queen  Anne's  reign — Arrival  of  the  Darley  Arabian — The 
Godolphin  Arabian — Royal  Ascot  inaugurated  by  Queen  Anne — 
"  Docking  "  and  "  cropping  "  condemned  by  Queen  Anne  ;  attempt 
to  suppress  these  practices — The  story  of  Eclipse — Some  horses  of 
romance — Copenhagen  and  Marengo 

HOUGH  James  II.  strove  to  emulate  to 
some  extent  the  example  set  by  his  light- 
hearted  predecessor  on  England's  throne,  he 
failed  almost  from  the  outset  to  achieve  popularity 
in  any  marked  degree.  More  partial  to  hunting 
than  to  racing,  during  his  brief  reign  he  neverthe- 
less gave  his  support  to  the  Turf  and  strove  to 
encourage  the  breeding  of  blood  stock.  His 
interest  in  the  chase,  however,  evaporated  almost 
completely  as  he  became  more  and  more  engrossed 
in  the  affairs  of  state. 

Whether  or  no  James  II.  was  a  finished  horse- 
man does  not  appear,  but  it  may  be  there  is  a 
hidden  significance  in  the  statement  to  be  found 
in  several  histories  that  he  was  "  the  only  crowned 
head  known  to  have  had  a  surgeon  to  attend  him 
in  the  hunting  field." 
261 


262  THE  HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Nor  is  there  evidence  of  his  having  ever 
attended  a  race  meeting  after  his  accession,  with 
the  exception  of  an  important  meeting  held  at 
Winchester  in  1685. 

The  stakes  run  for  at  about  this  time  were 
of  small  value.  Fifty  sovereigns  were  deemed  to 
be  a  prize  well  worth  winning,  while  a  purse  of 
100  guineas  attracted  many  spectators  and  large 
fields  and  gave  rise  to  "heated  and  excited 
speculation  as  to  the  probable  results  of  the 
contest." 

At  some  of  the  small  meetings  valuable  horses 
would  be  entered  to  run  for  a  paltry  stake  of  thirty 
sovereigns,  or  even  for  five  and  twenty,  and  it 
was  quite  common  for  insignificant  races  of  this 
kind  to  be  "  decided  by  vile  persons." 

The  weights  carried  in  races  run  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  out  of 
all  proportion.  Thus  we  read  of  horses  carrying 
ten,  twelve  and  thirteen  stone  in  the  final  heats 
of  short  flat  races  —  in  those  days  almost  all 
races  were  run  in  heats.  James  II.  does  not 
appear  to  have  owned  any  exceptionally  famous 
horses,  nor  does  the  horse  come  prominently 
to  the  front  during  his  brief  reign  of  four 
years. 


Two  events  of  national  importance  took  place 


ARRIVAL   OF  THE   BYERLEY  TURK     163 

in  1689  :  William  and  Mary  ascended  the  throne 
of  England,  and  the  famous  Byerley  Turk,  from 
which  so  many  of  our  thoroughbred  horses  are 
descended,  was  brought  over  by  his  owner, 
Captain  Byerley,  who  later  was  to  serve  in  King 
William's  army  and  fight  for  him  in  the  battle  of 
the  Boyne. 

Some  say  that  Captain  Byerley  had  the  Turk 
with  him  during  that  battle,  but  probably  this  was 
not  so. 

From  the  standpoint  from  which  we  are  passing 
the  history  of  this  country  in  review,  the  arrival 
of  the  Byerley  Turk  was  an  event  of  almost  as 
great  importance  as  William  and  Mary's  acces- 
sion, for  as  the  popularity  of  the  Turf  was  still 
increasing  year  by  year  the  importation  of  so 
valuable  a  stallion  as  the  Byerley  Turk  in  a 
sense  served  as  a  landmark. 

And  certainly  this  horse  proved  to  be  one  of  the 
greatest  of  all  the  sires  that  were  brought  over  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  king,  a  good  judge 
of  a  horse,  was  much  attracted  by  "  Byerley 's 
Treasure,"  as  some  soon  came  to  call  it,  and  it  is 
known  that  the  king  himself  owned  at  this  time 
some  of  the  finest  thoroughbreds,  probably,  that 
had  ever  been  foaled.  That  he  ran  horses  of  his 
own  at  Newmarket  is  beyond  dispute,  and  the 
general  impression  amongst  historical  writers 
appears  to  be  that  he  ran  horses  also  at  several 
other  meetings. 


264  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

It  was  while  attending  a  race  meeting  at  New- 
market that  the  king  commanded  the  unjust  Act 
to  be  put  into  force  which  rendered  it  penal  for  a 
Roman  Catholic  to  own  a  horse  worth  more  than 
five  pounds.  Trustworthy  historians  tell  us  that 
most  likely  the  king  would  not  have  acted  so, 
but  for  the  influence  brought  to  bear  upon  him 
by  his  queen,  who  apparently  was  anxious  to 
vent  her  spite  upon  at  least  one  high-born 
Catholic  by  whom  she  had  been  affronted. 

The  ultra- bigoted  among  the  king's  subjects 
rejoiced  openly  at  the  enforcement  of  the  statute, 
but,  whatever  reason  there  may  have  been  for  so 
severe  a  measure,  the  storm  of  indignation  aroused 
throughout  the  country  caused  the  king  consider- 
able uneasiness. 

As  a  natural  result  of  the  enforcement  of  the 
Act  many  Catholics  presently  substituted  teams 
of  oxen,  and  with  these  clumsy  animals  they 
would  drive  many  miles  to  attend  their  church 
services  on  Sundays. 

How  rapidly  the  Turf  must  have  continued  to 
acquire  popularity  during  this  reign  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  ten  years  after  the  king  and  queen 
had  ascended  the  throne — namely,  in  1699 — more 
race  meetings  were  held  throughout  the  country 
than  in  any  previous  year  in  England's  history, 
In  this  year,  too,  the  King's  Master  of  the  Stud, 
Robert  Marshall,  brought  over  from  Arabia 
fourteen  valuable  stallions  at  a  cost  of  some 


HENRY  HYDE,  EARL  OF  CLARENDON      265 

£\  100,  and  these  were  sent  direct  to  Newmarket, 
where  the  king  was  staying  at  the  time. 


That  the  reports  of  the  evil  that  is  said 
necessarily  to  follow  in  the  train  of  racing  were 
in  William's  reign  greatly  exaggerated,  as  they 
are  to-day,  may  be  gathered  from  a  description 
of  the  manners  of  the  age  to  be  found  in  the 
diary  and  state  letters  of  Henry  Hyde,  Earl  of 
Clarendon. 

Hyde,  who  died  at  Cornbury,  in  Oxfordshire, 
in  1709,  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-one,  tells  us 
that  towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
"  a  man  of  the  first  quality  made  it  his  constant 
practice  to  go  to  church,"  and  that  he  could  spend 
the  day  in  society  with  his  family  and  friends 
"without  shaking  his  arm  at  the  gaming-table, 
associating  with  jockeys  at  Newmarket,  or 
murdering  time  by  a  constant  round  of  giddy 
dissipation,  if  not  criminal  indulgence." 

Other  writers  make  statements  practically  to 
the  same  effect,  so  it  is  safe  to  infer  that  the  fore- 
going description  forms  a  true  account  of  the 
style  of  living  in  the  age  when  the  Turf  reached 
probably  its  zenith.  There  are,  however, 
historians  who  would  have  us  believe  that  at  no 
period  did  horse  racing  flourish  in  this  country 
without  bringing  with  it,  as  though  by  natural 


266  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

process,  dissipation,  debauchery  and  general 
degeneration. 

Indeed,  as  one  writer  exclaims  in  an  access  of 
unchecked  emotion,  "from  the  period  when  the 
noble  animal  became  debased  and  prostituted  in 
this  country  from  the  purposes  for  which  he  was 
intended  by  his  Maker — the  purposes  of  war  and 
agriculture — he  has  gradually  sunk,  and  those 
who  have  helped  to  debase  him  have  at  great 
length  followed  his  example."  Out  of  considera- 
tion for  this  writer's  feelings — for  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  by  now  he  has  recognised  the  error  of  his 
judgment — I  refrain  from  mentioning  his  name. 

William  met  his  death  through  a  riding  acci- 
dent. Mounted  upon  his  favourite  "pleasure 
horse,"  described  as  "a  steed  of  mean  stature, 
named  Sorrel,  which  had  a  blind  eye,"  the  king, 
so  it  is  said,  for  some  reason  lost  his  temper  and 
struck  his  mount  a  violent  blow  upon  the  head 
with  a  heavy  riding-stick. 

Instantly  the  animal  bounded  forward,  and 
William,  thrown  suddenly  off  his  balance,  was 
unhorsed  and  fell  heavily  on  his  side. 

Personally  I  think  the  story  more  likely  to  be 
true  is  that  Sorrel  stumbled  over  a  molehill,  and, 
in  trying  to  recover  himself,  fell  on  to  his  side. 
The  king,  thrown  violently,  received  an  internal 
injury  from  which  he  never  recovered.  Other 
stories  of  what  took  place  have  also  been  handed 
down  to  us. 


ARRIVAL  OF  THE  BARLEY  ARABIAN     267 


No  less  liberal  a  supporter  of  the  Turf  than 
William  of  Orange  was  Queen  Anne,  his  suc- 
cessor. A  modern  tautological  historian  quaintly 
tells  us  that  "  Good  Queen  Anne  had  many 
horses,  and  they  were  numerous  and  costly,"  a 
phrase  reminiscent  of  the  newspaper  reporter's 
description  of  a  bride's  wedding  gifts. 

That  Anne  should  have  loved  horses  and  been 
an  enthusiastic  " turfite"  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  when  we  bear  in  mind  the  sort  of  atmosphere 
in  which  she  had  been  reared. 

The  Duke  of  Cumberland's  breeding  establish- 
ment at  Cumberland  Lodge  in  Windsor  Great 
Park — where  later  on  Eclipse  and  the  almost 
equally  famous  Herod  were  to  be  foaled — 
probably  was  the  best  known  in  England. 

According  to  Mr  Theodore  Andrea  Cook,  our 
modern  authority  upon  the  thoroughbred,  its 
origin,  and  all  that  has  to  do  with  it,  the  finest 
breed  of  horse  ever  produced  was  the  result  of 
the  cross  between  the  pure  Arab  and  the  animal 
that  was  in  England  towards  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

The  Darley  Arabian,  foaled  about  the  month 
of  March,  1702,  and  his  line  of  distinguished 
successors,  in  reality  started  the  long  and  baffling 
process  which  eventually  ended  in  the  production 


268  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

of  the  beautifully  shaped  animal  we  see  in  the 
modern  thoroughbred. 

Probably  less  than  fifteen  hands,  the  Darley 
Arabian  was  a  dark  bay  descended  from  the  race 
the  most  esteemed  among  the  Arabs.  Captain 
Upton  maintains  that  it  was  of  the  Ras-el-Fadawi 
breed,  but  the  mass  of  the  evidence  obtainable 
points  rather  to  its  having  been  a  pure  Managni. 

Certainly  the  Darley  Arabian  is  one  of  the 
most  historically  interesting  horses  that  has  ever 
been  imported  into  this  country.  The  property 
of  John  Brewster  Darley,  Esq.,  of  Aldby  Park, 
near  York,  it  was  bought  at  Aleppo  by  Brewster 
Darley's  brother  for  comparatively  a  small  sum, 
and  sent  to  England  about  the  year  1705,  where 
subsequently  it  became  the  sire  of  Flying  Childers 
and  consequently  the  great-great-grandsire  of 
Eclipse — three  names  that  stand  out  in  the  history 
of  the  horse  and  his  connection  with  the  history 
of  this  country  perhaps  more  prominently  than 
any  other  three  it  would  be  possible  to  mention. 

Flying  Childers,  like  his  sire,  was  a  bay,  and  Mr 
Leonard  Childers,  of  Carr  House,  near  Doncaster, 
who  bred  him  in  1715,  soon  afterwards  sold  him 
to  the  Duke  of  Devonshire. 

About  fourteen  and  a  half  hands,  Flying 
Childers  is  described  as  "a  close-made  horse, 
short-backed  and  compact,  whose  reach  lay 
altogether  in  his  limbs." 

Eclipse,   as  we   shall   see  presently,   was   the 


THE   GODOLPHIN    ARABIAN         269 

reverse  of  this,  for  he  had  great  length  of  waist 
and  stood  over  much  ground. 

According  to  trustworthy  statistics,  Flying 
Childers  was  the  fastest  horse  that  ever  ran  at 
Newmarket,  while  it  is  stated,  on  what  appears  to 
be  good  authority,  that  no  faster  horse  has  ever 
lived. 

With  only  Eastern  blood  in  his  veins — his  dam, 
Betty  Leedes,  was  a  descendant  of  pure  Eastern 
horses  that  had  lived  long  in  England — Flying 
Childers'  career  upon  the  Turf  was  truly  phenome- 
nal. He  died  in  1741. 


Another  historic  sire  of  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  the  Godolphin  Arabian, 
called  also  the  Godolphin  Barb,  foaled  in  1724. 

His  height  was  about  fifteen  hands,  and  his 
colour  a  dark  brown. 

We  are  told  that  he  was  sent  to  Louis  XIV. 
by  the  Emperor  of  Morocco,  but  it  is  known 
that  when  he  died  he  belonged  to  the  Earl 
of  Godolphin. 

Whether  the  pedigrees  of  all  modern  thorough- 
breds can  or  cannot  be  traced  back  to  the  Byerley 
Turk,  to  the  Darley  Arabian,  or  to  the  Godolphin 
Arabian,  is  still  a  source  of  argument,  and  opinions 
upon  the  point  probably  are  about  equally  divided. 

A  romantic  story  attaches  to  the  Godolphin 


2 ;o  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

Barb — to  the  last  he  was  pronounced  by  Lord 
Godolphin  to  be  an  Arabian — inasmuch  as  he 
was  at  one  period  of  his  life  driven  in  a  water 
cart  in  the  streets  of  Paris.  He  died  in  1753, 
and  his  remains  lie  under  the  stable  gateway  at 
Gog  Magog,  near  Cambridge. 


After  the  race  meeting  known  as  Royal  Ascot 
had  been  inaugurated  by  Queen  Anne,  in  1712, 
the  tone  of  the  Turf  in  England  greatly  improved. 
The  rules  of  racing  were  revised,  and  more  atten- 
tion was  paid  to  their  enforcement.  Also  steps 
were  taken  to  prevent  "  undesirable  and  roguish 
persons "  from  "  indulging  in  their  wicked  and 
thievish  habits  " — in  short,  a  serious  attempt  was 
made  to  purify  the  Turf,  as  the  process  is  termed 
now. 

To  what  extent  this  alleged  purification  proved 
effectual  we  are  not  told,  but  a  number  of  persons 
who  probably  were  considered  "  undesirable  and 
roguish,"  were,  about  the  year  1718,  ordered  to 
"abstain  from  attending  the  meetings,"  a  com- 
mand that  most  likely  was  the  equivalent  for 
being  warned  off  the  Turf,  and  apparently  is  the 
first  actual  allusion  to  warning  off  the  Turf  that 
is  to  be  found  mentioned  in  history.  It  has  even 
been  maintained  that  the  inauguration  of  the 
Jockey  Club,  believed  to  have  taken  place  in 


DOCKING  &  CROPPING  CONDEMNED     271 

1750,  was  prompted  by  an  urgent  necessity  for 
a  body  of  responsible  Turf  administrators  with 
power  "to  order  thievish  persons  to  keep 
away." 

I  believe  it  is  not  generally  known,  except 
among  persons  versed  in  Turf  history,  that  prior 
to  the  inauguration  of  the  Derby  and  the  Oaks  it 
was  quite  exceptional  for  three-year-old  horses  to 
be  raced  at  all.  Before  that  time  the  three-year- 
old  was  looked  upon  more  or  less  in  the  same  way 
that  to-day  we  look  upon  the  yearling. 

Indeed  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  but  few 
horses  were  run  when  very  young.  In  William 
and  Mary's  reign  some  of  the  most  important 
races  were  won  by  six-year-olds,  and  we  find 
allusion  to  a  six-year-old  plate  that  must  have  been 
run  for  at  about  this  time.  Nearly  all  the  long 
races  were  still  run  in  heats,  and  some  of  the 
horses  entered  were  nine,  ten,  twelve  and  even 
more. 


The  practice  of  cropping  manes  and  docking 
tails  was  expressly  condemned  by  Queen  Anne, 
also  by  one  of  the  Georges,  probably  George  III. 
Berenger,  in  his  "  History  and  Art  of  Horse- 
manship," published  in  1771,  observes  that  "the 
cruelty  and  absurdity  of  our  notions  and  customs 
in  'cropping/  as  it  is  called,  the  ears  of  our 


272  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

horses,  '  docking '  and  '  nicking '  their  tails,  is 
such  that  we  every  day  fly  in  the  face  of  reason, 
nature  and  humanity. 

"  Nor  is  the  existing  race  of  men  in  this  island 
alone  to  be  charged  with  this  folly,  almost  un- 
becoming the  ignorance  and  cruelty  of  savages, 
but  their  forefathers  several  centuries  ago  were 
charged  and  reprehended  by  a  public  canon  for 
this  absurd  and  barbarous  practice. 

"  However,  we  need  but  look  into  the  streets 
and  roads  to  be  convinced  that  their  descendants 
have  not  degenerated  from  them,  although  his 
present  Majesty  in  his  wisdom  and  humanity  has 
endeavoured  to  reclaim  them  by  issuing  an  order 
that  the  horses  which  serve  in  his  troops  shall 
remain  as  nature  designed  them." 

Only  a  few  years  after  the  publication  of  the 
"History  and  Art  of  Horsemanship"  a  deter- 
mined attempt  was  made  to  suppress,  once  and 
for  all  time,  the  practices  referred  to.  For  a  while 
public  interest  was  greatly  stirred,  and  it  seemed 
as  though  the  practices  would  at  last  be  put  an 
end  to  by  direct  leglislation,  but  eventually  undue 
influence  was  brought  to  bear,  and  nothing  was 
done. 

Indeed,  as  most  of  us  must  have  noticed,  the 
practice  of  docking  the  tails  of  nearly  all  horses 
except  race  horses  is  so  prevalent  at  the  present 
time  that  in  many  instances  the  tails  are  cut 
to  within  a  few  inches  of  the  root,  while  some 


*  ••  • ' 


THE   STORY   OF   ECLIPSE  273 

of  our  ultra  "  fashionable  "  horse  dealers  go  so  far 
as  to  pluck  out  most  of  the  hairs  left  on  the 
stump. 

In  the  west  of  England  the  latter  trick  is 
indulged  in  more  often  than  in  the  northern 
counties  or  the  midlands. 


Of  all  the  famous  sires  whose  names  stand  out 
as  household  words  in  the  annals  of  the  horse  in 
history,  but  few  bear  comparison  with  the  world- 
renowned  Eclipse. 

Bred,  as  already  mentioned,  by  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  he  took  his  name  from  the  coincid- 
ence that  the  great  eclipse  of  1764  was  in  progress 
at  the  very  hour  of  his  birth. 

There  does  not  seem  to  have  been  anything 
particularly  striking  about  the  foal's  appearance, 
and  certainly  none  imagined  for  a  moment  that 
he  would  be  likely  to  grow  into  one  of  the  most 
famous  horses,  if  not  the  most  famous  horse,  the 
Turf  has  ever  known. 

Until  the  age  of  five,  Eclipse  was  not  run  in 
public,  but  from  the  time  he  won  his  first  race, 
in  May  1769,  until  his  last  appearance  upon  the 
Turf,  in  October  1770,  he  was  never  beaten,  or 
near  being  beaten.  The  long  list  of  his  triumphs 
need  not  be  given  here,  but  Mr  Theodore  Cook 
reminds  us  in  his  exhaustive  work  upon  this 


274  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

horse  that  it  was  Dennis  O'Kelly's  son  of  Eclipse 
that  won  the  second  Derby,  and  that  out  of  127 
races,  including  the  first,  Eclipse's  descendants 
had  down  to  the  year  1906  furnished  no  fewer 
than  eighty-two  winners. 

Eclipse  himself  was  sold  as  a  yearling  for 
less  than  100  guineas.  Of  his  direct  descend- 
ants, a  yearling  filly  was  bought  not  very  long 
ago  for  10,000  guineas  ;  a  race  horse  in  training 
has  fetched  ,£39,375  at  public  auction  ;  two  sires 
have  each  produced  stock  that  has  won  over  half- 
a-million  sterling  ;  and  other  horses  tracing  back 
to  him  in  the  direct  male  line  have  won  the 
"Triple  Crown"  nine  times  out  of  ten  and 
hold  the  record  for  the  pace  at  which  the  Two- 
Thousand,  the  Derby  and  the  Leger  have  been 
run. 

Upon  one  point  all  trustworthy  authorities  on 
thoroughbreds  and  their  performances,  also  the 
principal  historians  of  the  Turf,  and  in  addition 
the  leading  " turfites"  of  our  own  period,  are  in 
agreement,  and  that  is  that  since  the  time  of 
Flying  Childers  the  Turf,  the  world  over,  has  not 
known  a  horse  faster  than  Eclipse  was. 

This  in  itself  is  exceptional  praise,  but  Eclipse 
was  to  add  materially  to  his  extraordinary  re- 
putation, for  while  at  stud  he  became  the  sire 
of  335  winners  who  between  the  year  1774  and 
the  year  1796  won  close  upon  ,£160,000  in 
stakes  alone,  exclusive  of  cups  and  plates,  and 


THE   STORY   OF   ECLIPSE  275 

in  addition  his  owner  is  known  to  have  stated 
openly  that  he  was  paid  for  the  horse's  services 
as  a  stallion  upwards  of  ,£25,000. 

Referring  again  to  the  later  descendants  of 
Eclipse,  we  find  that  in  the  year  1894  they  won 
between  them  over  ,£421,400  in  stakes,  the 
number  of  winners  being  827,  and  the  total 
number  of  races  won,  1469.  Indeed  there  prob- 
ably is  not  any  other  horse  in  the  world,  nor  ever 
has  been,  that  has  been  the  prime  cause  of  so 
much  money  changing  hands. 

Perhaps  what  most  attracted  attention  to 
Eclipse  in  his  racing  days  was  the  apparent  ease 
with  which  he  won.  His  stride  is  said  to  have 
been  phenomenal.  Did  he,  during  the  whole  of 
his  career  upon  the  Turf,  ever  fully  extend  himself? 
The  question  has  many  times  been  discussed  by 
experts,  and  the  consensus  of  opinion  seems  to 
point  to  the  conclusion  that  he  never  did. 

For  even  after  making  his  greatest  efforts  he 
did  not  seem  to  be  distressed.  The  race-loving 
public  seemed  almost  to  worship  him  at  about  the 
period  he  reached  his  zenith,  and  in  the  end  it  was 
to  all  intents  impossible  to  back  him. 

The  interest  the  king  was  known  to  take  in 
Eclipse  was  very  great,  yet  probably  George  III. 
was  at  heart  less  interested  in  the  sport  of  racing 
than  any  of  his  predecessors  had  been. 

Thackeray  insinuates  this  in  his  immortal  satire 
of  "  The  Four  Georges,"  and  with  truth  it  may 


276  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

be  said  that  of  all  the  great  horses  that  have 
figured  prominently  either  directly  or  indirectly 
in  the  history  of  this  country,  Flying  Childers  and 
Eclipse  take  precedence. 


Much  that  has  been  written  on  the  subject  of 
Queen  Anne's  alleged  fondness  for  horses  would 
seem  to  be  based  on  doubtful  knowledge.  The 
more  discriminating  among  our  historians  appear 
to  think  that  too  much  importance  has  been 
attached  to  many  of  the  statements. 

There  are,  I  believe,  letters  extant  from  Queen 
Anne  in  which  she  talks  at  length  upon  the  subject 
of  the  horses  that  belonged  to  her,  but  certain 
documents  of  the  same  sort  are  attributed  to  her 
which  she  probably  did  not  write. 

The  King  of  Denmark,  upon  one  occasion 
made  her  a  present  of  twelve  mares  carefully 
chosen  by  himself,  but  for  the  rest  the  majority 
of  the  stories  told  of  Queen  Anne  should  be 
accepted  with  reservation. 

Indeed  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  to 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  horse 
again  figured  largely  in  romance,  a  fact  that  may 
in  a  measure  account  for  the  stories  that  have 
been  put  about  of  Queen  Anne  and  her  horses. 

Smollett  is  but  one  of  the  writers  whose  works 
are  prolific  of  narratives  of  the  kind,  and  some  of 


SOME   HORSES    OF   ROMANCE       277 

these  stories  from  being  repeated  so  frequently 
came  at  last  to  be  believed  by  a  mass  of  the 
people. 

Thus  the  tales  of  Sir  Launcelot  Graves'  adven- 
tures, and  of  the  acts  that  were  attributed  to 
Sir  Launcelot's  grotesque  "  mettlesome  sorrel," 
Bronzomarte,  were  believed  by  some  actually  to 
be  true. 

In  point  of  fact  this  Sir  Launcelot  must  have 
been  a  sort  of  Don  Quixote  who  in  the  reign  of 
George  II.  deemed  it  his  mission  to  roam  about 
England  "redressing  wrongs,  discouraging  moral 
evils  not  recognisable  by  law,  degrading  im- 
modesty, punishing  ingratitude  and  reforming 
society  generally." 

Fables  were  related  too  of  Robert  Burns' 
mare,  Jenny  Geddes,  while  the  poets  also  took 
possession  of  the  palfrey  which  belonged  to 
Madame  Chatelet  of  Circy — the  lady  with  whom 
Voltaire  lived  for  ten  or  more  years — and  wove 
around  it,  also  round  its  mistress,  many  romantic 
but  wholly  fictitious  narratives. 

Its  name  was  Rossignol,  and,  according  to  one 
poet  at  least,  Madame  Chatelet  fed  the  creature 
"on  newly  picked  apricots,  gave  it  milk  to  drink, 
and  rode  with  a  silken  rein."  Rossignol  is  men- 
tioned also  in  the  history  of  Voltaire's  life. 

The  story  of  Dr  Dove's  steed  that  was  called 
Nobbs  has  the  seal  of  Southey  upon  it,  which  may 
account  for  the  animal's  having  been  dragged  into 


278  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

so  many  romances.  At  best,  however,  it  was  a 
foolish  beast.  Dr  Dove,  it  may  be  unnecessary 
to  remind  the  reader,  is  the  hero  of  Southey's 
"  Doctor."  The  extent  to  which  some  of  the 
famous  stories  of  romance  came  in  course  of 
time  to  be  woven  into  other  stories  is  rather 
remarkable. 

Thus  we  find  Dr  Dove  described  in  three 
different  stories  as  three  distinct  and  different 
individuals  not  one  of  whom  is  recognisable  as 
the  same  person  and  the  original,  while  the  horse, 
Nobbs,  is  spoken  of  in  one  story  as  a  bay,  in 
another  as  a  brown,  in  a  third  as  a  black. 

Is  it  possible  that  the  authors  of  those  stories 
can  have  read  the  original  Southey?  And  if 
history  of  such  small  importance,  comparatively, 
is  thus  corrupted,  can  one  place  implicit  belief  in 
many  of  the  serious  historical  narratives  ?  Rather 
one  is  tempted  to  believe  the  assertion  of  Pitt, 
"the  boy  Prime  Minister,"  when  he  declared  in 
all  seriousness  that  "nothing  is  so  uncertain  as 
positive  truth." 


Most  historians  make  mention  of  the  charger 
that  carried  Wellington  so  well  at  Waterloo  ;  yet 
the  only  statement  with  the  impress  of  truth  in 
this  connection  is  that  the  horse  died  in  1835, 
aged  twenty-seven.  It  was  Wellington's  favourite 


NAPOLEON   AT   WAGRAM 
From  the  famous  painting  by  Vernct  at  Versailles 


COPENHAGEN  AND  MARENGO  279 

steed,  and  its  name  was  Copenhagen.  Of  his 
other  horses  we  read  but  little. 

Marengo,  Napoleon's  favourite  mount,  was, 
according  to  one  historian,  a  pure  white  stallion  ; 
according  to  another  a  cream-coloured  gelding. 
In  Vernet's  famous  picture  of  Napoleon  crossing 
the  Alps  we  are  shown  a  snow-white  horse,  and 
Meissonnier  shows  us  a  snow-white  horse  too,  so 
most  likely  this  animal  actually  was  quite  white. 
The  resting-place  of  Marengo's  remains  is  the 
Museum  of  the  United  Services,  in  London. 

In  an  age  when  attempts  are  made  to  over- 
throw almost  every  established  historical  record, 
and  when  we  are  even  informed  quite  gravely 
that  Joan  of  Arc  was  not  burnt  at  the  stake  at  all, 
but  that  the  victim  was  some  other  woman — a  lady 
of  rank,  who  out  of  compassion  for  the  poor 
Pucelle  was  at  the  last  moment  prompted  to  sacri- 
fice herself  in  her  place  ! — it  is  not  surprising  that 
sceptics  should  exist  who  would  have  us  believe 
that  Napoleon's  horse  was  not  called  Marengo. 

What  is  it,  precisely,  that  prompts  this  section 
of  modern  searchers  after  "  positive  tru  .a  "  to  cast 
doubts  upon  so  many  of  the  minor  hisiorical  in- 
cidents? For,  as  a  reviewer  recently  observed, 
it  is  hardly  worth  the  while  of  any  serious  historian 
to  waste  time  in  refuting  such  misstatements. 

Sir  Charles  Napier  owned  a  mare  that  he  prized 
greatly.  Its  name  was  Molly,  but  it  does  not 
appear  to  have  performed  any  exceptional  feats, 


28o  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

of  prowess.  Apparently  the  only  point  about  it 
upon  which  our  historians  lay  stress  is  that  the 
animal  lived  to  the  age  of  five  and  thirty.  As 
for  Lord  Nelson's  connection  with  horses,  so  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain  it  was  limited  to 
his  superstitious  belief  that  the  possession  of  a 
horseshoe  must  bring  him  luck.  At  anyrate  he 
always  kept  at  least  one  horseshoe  nailed  to  the 
mast  of  his  ship,  the  Victory. 

The  story  of  Siegfried's  horse,  Grane,  is  of 
course  well  known.  In  William  Combe's  quaint 
tale  of  the  simple-minded,  henpecked  clergyman, 
Dr  Syntax,  we  have  a  horse  named  Grizzle  that 
was  "all  skin  and  bone."  Written  in  eight- 
syllable  verse,  the  narrative  explains  in  rather 
an  amusing  way  how  the  eccentric  old  scholar 
left  home  in  search  of  the  picturesque,  and 
Grizzle  figures  largely  in  it  from  beginning  to 
end,  in  much  the  same  way  that  the  ill-starred 
pony,  Fiddleback,  figures  in  Goldsmith's  narra- 
tive. 


CHAPTER   V 

A  retrospective  summary — The  beginning  of  the  end — Supersti- 
tion of  the  horseshoe — The  Bedouins  and  their  horses — Some  classic 
thoroughbreds  of  modern  times — Horses  hypnotised — The  Derby 
and  the  Oaks — Horse  racing  in  Mongolia — Conclusion. 

V17ITH  the  early  years  of  our  reigning  sove- 
*  *  reign's  period  the  long  story  of  the  horse's 
progress  through  history  may  be  deemed  to  have 
come  practically  to  an  end. 

We  have  seen  how  the  very  early  races  of  Asia, 
of  Africa,  and  of  Europe  were  enabled  to  spread 
their  power,  and  were  assisted  in  protecting  them- 
selves against  the  onslaughts  of  their  numerous 
enemies,  by  possessing  many  horses  upon  which 
they  could  depend  implicitly  in  the  hour  of 
strife. 

The  Egyptians,  Medes,  Persians,  Syrians, 
Scythians,  Libyans,  Carthaginians,  Macedonians, 
Numidians — all  owed  their  series  of  successes 
in  a  great  measure  to  the  fact  that  they  owned 
horses  when  their  antagonists  either  had  none 
at  all,  or  else  only  a  few,  and  those  of  an 
indifferent  stamp. 

Thus  through  the  whole  course  of  history  the 
influence  of  the  horse  can  be  traced. 

Rome,  until  after  the  conquest  of  Gaul,  was 
281 


282  THE  HORSE   IN  HISTORY 

deemed  a  weak  nation  in  some  respects,  and 
when  we  study  the  history  of  Rome  at  about 
that  period  we  find  the  weakness  to  have  been 
in  a  measure  attributable  to  Rome's  shortage  of 
horses  during  the  greater  part  of  that  long  spell. 


Coming  to  what  has  been  termed  the  Arabian 
period,  history  proves  beyond  all  doubt  that  the 
spread  of  Islam  was  due  partly  to  the  Arabians 
having  at  about  that  time  become  possessors  of 
many  horses. 

Indeed  had  the  Franks  not  owned  a  great 
number  of  exceptionally  fine  horses  by  about 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  A.D.,  who 
can  say  that  the  Saracens  would  not,  after  the 
year  732  A.D.,  have  vanquished  the  larger  portion 
of  Western  Europe  ? 

Again,  what  chance  of  victory  would  the 
Normans  have  had  at  Hastings  had  Harold's 
forces  been  mounted  on  horseback  ?  For  when 
we  remember  the  valiant  way  that  Harold  and 
his  men  fought  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  the 
Normans  would  have  been  completely  routed 
had  they  too  been  fighting  on  foot  and  not  on 
horseback,  in  which  case  the  entire  history  of 
this  country  would  very  likely  have  been  dif- 
ferent. 


RETROSPECTIVE   SUMMARY         283 


In  the  Middle  Ages  we  find  the  horse  playing  if 
possible  a  more  important  part  in  the  making  of 
history  than  it  had  done  in  the  previous  centuries, 
for  what  would  have  become  of  England's  power, 
and  her  prestige,  had  she  been  deprived  of  those 
great  war  horses  and  the  almost  invulnerable  men- 
at-arms  who  bestrode  them  ? 

England's  might  spread  steadily  while  the 
strength  and  size  of  her  horses  went  on  increas- 
ing, and  while  the  weight  of  the  armour  worn 
by  horses  and  men  grew  gradually  heavier  and 
heavier. 

The  limit  in  weight  of  armour  would  appear 
to  have  been  reached  when  a  horse  became  com- 
pelled to  carry  a  man  and  armour  that  weighed 
together  between  thirty  and  three  and  thirty  stone. 

It  was  soon  after  this  limit  had  been  arrived  at 
that  the  era  of  the  new  and  armourless  cavalry- 
man mounted  on  a  light  and  active  horse  set  in 
unexpectedly. 

Coming  to  more  recent  years,  what  would 
Marlborough  or  any  other  of  the  great  and 
successful  military  leaders  have  done  had  they 
been  deprived  of  even  a  portion  of  their  cavalry  ? 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  Boer  War  the  wise- 
acres shook  their  heads,  declaring  that  in  such 
a  country  as  South  Africa  the  mounted  soldier 


284  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

must  prove  useless;  that  the  "punitive  expedi- 
tion," as  the  campaign  was  termed  when  first  war 
was  declared,  would  be  conducted  almost  solely 
by  infantry ;  while  reasons  innumerable  were 
advanced  to  prove  the  " accuracy"  of  such  wild 
forecasts. 

And  now  when  we  look  back  upon  it  all  we 
see  that  the  war  would  most  likely  still  be  dragging 
its  way  along  had  only  infantry  been  employed. 


To-day  it  seems  likely,  indeed  almost  certain, 
that  the  horse's  influence  upon  the  world's  pro- 
gress— influence  that  we  have  traced  back  into 
the  dim  ages — has  actually  come  to  a  close. 

Evidence  that  this  is  so  is  observable  on  every 
side.  The  discovery  of  the  strength  of  steam 
left  the  horse  still  in  power,  so  to  speak,  for  the 
locomotive  engine  drove  only  coach  horses  out 
of  existence. 

The  utility  of  the  electrically  driven  motor,  and 
of  the  motor  driven  by  petrol  power,  has  been 
proved  to  be  almost  ubiquitous,  and  the  rapidity 
with  which  the  motor  has  already  ousted  horses 
in  almost  every  direction  is  little  short  of 
phenomenal. 

For  the  ultra-conservative  little  body  of  the 
community  to  maintain  that  this  is  not  so  be- 


SUPERSTITION   OF   THE   HORSESHOE     285 

cause  it  hates  to  speak  or  think  of  automobiles 
comes  near  to  being  grotesque.  We  are  con- 
fronted by  hard  facts  that  cannot  be  avoided,  and 
whether  we  like  them  or  not  they  nevertheless 
must  force  us  to  realise  what  is  happening. 

Shall  I  be  charged  with  indulging  a  flight  of 
imagination  if  I  venture  to  declare  that,  before 
three  decades  more  have  passed,  the  horse  will 
have  become  so  completely  dethroned  that  it  will 
be  with  us  only  for  racing  purposes  and  to  assist 
us  in  the  artificial  chase  ? 

If  about  the  year  2030  some  student  of  past 
history  shall  come  upon  these  lines  I  trust  that 
he  will  quote  them  with  appropriate  comment. 


Horses  famous  in  history  other  than  that  of 
the  Turf  occur  but  rarely  in  the  records  of  the 
last  century  or  so.  Lord  Cardigan  had  a  chest- 
nut thoroughbred  that  carried  him  unscathed 
through  the  memorable  Balaclava  Charge,  but 
there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  story  of  interest 
attaching  to  the  animal — it  had  two  white  stock- 
ings and  its  name  was  Ronald. 

I  have  tried  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  super- 
stitious belief  that  the  possession  of  a  horseshoe 
must  bring  luck,  but  without  any  very  satisfactory 
result.  The  superstition  reached  its  height  ap- 


286  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

parently  towards  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  or  a  little  later,  and  by  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  it  was  steadily  dying  out. 

A  horseshoe  nailed  to  a  house  door  was  in  the 
first  instance  supposed  to  keep  away  witches,  a 
belief  which  gradually  developed  into  the  sup- 
position that  the  possession  of  the  shoe  would 
in  some  way  bring  good  fortune  to  the  owner. 
According  to  several  writers,  most  of  the  houses 
in  the  west  end  of  London  at  one  time  had  a  horse- 
shoe on  the  threshold,  and  it  is  said  that  in  the 
year  1813  no  less  than  seventeen  shoes  nailed 
to  doors  were  to  be  seen  in  Monmouth  Street 
alone. 

Also  it  is  asserted  that  as  late  as  the  year  1855 
seven  horseshoes  remained  nailed  to  different 
doors  in  that  street  alone. 


In  his  interesting  book,  "  Bedouin  Tribes  of 
the  Euphrates,"  Mr  Blunt  has  something  to  say 
upon  the  subject  of  the  treatment  of  horses  by  the 
Bedouins. 

The  Bedouin,  it  seems,  as  a  rule  does  not  use 
either  bit  or  bridle,  but  controls  his  horse  by 
means  of  a  halter  to  which  a  thin  chain  is  attached 
that  passes  round  the  nose. 

Apparently  stirrups  are  unknown  to  the  Bedouin, 
while  in  place  of  a  saddle  he  uses  a  stout  pad 


BEDOUINS   AND   THEIR   HORSES      287 

made  of  cotton  which  he  binds  on  to  the  horse's 
back  with  the  help  of  a  surcingle. 

Among  the  many  interesting  statements  in 
this  book  is  one  to  the  effect  that  the  Bedouin 
cannot  ascertain  a  horse's  age  by  examining  the 
teeth,  and  that  he  has  no  knowledge  of  the  trick 
so  often  resorted  to  by  unprincipled  European 
horse  dealers  of  making  false  marks  on  teeth. 

Many  Chinamen,  on  the  other  hand,  claim  to 
be  able  to  tell  a  horse's  age  from  its  teeth  up  to 
the  age  of  thirty-two. 

A  point  omitted  by  Mr  Blunt  is  that  the 
Bedouin  being,  so  to  speak,  born  a  horseman, 
is  unable  to  understand  how  any  race  of  men 
can  exist  that  cannot  ride.  Were  we  to  be  told 
that  a  race  of  men  exist  who  have  never  learnt 
to  walk  we  should  be  about  as  much  surprised 
as  the  Bedouin  is. 

Our  leading  authorities  upon  the  history  of  the 
thoroughbred  are  unanimous  in  asserting  that 
until  about  a  century  and  a  half  ago  the  thorough- 
bred was  unknown  in  America. 

Yet  among  the  famous  descendants  of  the  first 
thoroughbreds  imported  into  the  United  States 
we  find  horses  of  world-wide  renown,  such 
animals,  for  instance,  as  Iroquois  and  Foxhall. 
These  two  horses  are  especially  worthy  of 
mention,  inasmuch  as  they  achieved  success  that 
came  near  to  being  phenomenal. 

How    remarkable    the    development    of    the 


288  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

thoroughbred  has  been  in  our  own  country  may  be 
gathered  from  our  knowledge  that  whereas  the 
fee  charge  for  the  services  of  Herod  at  stud  was 
but  ten  guineas,  and  for  Touchstone  only  sixty 
guineas,  to-day  the  fee  for  the  use  of  a  "  fashion- 
able" stallion  is  frequently  from  500  to  600 
guineas. 

The  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  that 
met  in  the  year  1873  to  discuss  the  question  of 
horse  breeding  did  much  to  encourage  the  rear- 
ing of  the  very  best  stock  obtainable.  The 
famous  race  horse,  Common,  by  Isonomy  out  of 
Thistle,  bred  in  1888,  made  his  first  appearance 
as  a  three-year-old  and  won  for  Lord  Arlington 
and  Sir  Frederick  Johnson — his  joint  owners — 
the  Two  Thousand,  the  Derby  and  the  Leger,  a 
performance  that  at  once  places  him  in  one  of  the 
most  important  niches  of  fame  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  last  century. 

Another  of  the  "immortals"  who  won  the 
three  great  races  is  Gladiateur,  a  name  that 
recalls  to  mind  a  host  of  thoroughbreds  whose 
fame  will  be  handed  down  to  posterity — Blue 
Gown,  Blair  Athol,  Harkaway,  Ormonde,  St 
Gatien,  Robert  the  Devil,  Hermit,  Persimmon, 
Flying  Fox,  Donovan — the  names  come  tumbling 
into  one's  thoughts  pell  mell  ;  but  as  the  triumphs 
of  these  and  many  other  giants  of  the  turf  of 
comparatively  modern  times  have  been  described 
in  detail  again  and  again  in  the  many  volumes 


MESMERISING   HORSES  289 

devoted   to   the   thoroughbred   and   his   history, 
they  need  not  be  repeated  here. 

Yet  it  is  worthy  of  mention  that  though  some 
few  years  ago  the  famous  thoroughbred  sires  in 
this  country  included  260  direct  descendants  of 
Eclipse,  and  sixty  direct  descendants  of  the 
Byerley  Turk,  they  included  only  thirty-six  direct 
descendants  of  the  greatly  glorified  Godolphin 
Arabian. 


I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  the  cream- 
white  horses  which,  until  comparatively  a  recent 
date,  were  used  by  the  king  on  state  occasions, 
are  directly  descended  from  the  celebrated  white 
horses  formerly  in  the  royal  stables  at  Hanover. 

Allusion  to  these  animals  recalls  to  mind  a 
method  of  controlling  horses  that  is  said  to  be  in 
vogue  still  in  parts  of  Austria,  where  it  is  spoken 
of  as  "the  Balassiren "  of  horses,  and  that  in 
reality  is  a  method  of  mesmerising  horses  before 
shoeing  them. 

According  to  Obersteimer,  whose  words  are 
quoted  in  Hudson's  "  Psychic  Phenomena,"  the 
process  takes  its  name  from  a  cavalry  officer 
named  Balassa,  who  was  the  first  to  introduce  or 
to  attempt  it. 

Under  the  circumstances  it  is  interesting  to 
read  that  among  the  early  Egyptians  there  were 


290  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

men  who  could,  or  who  professed  to  be  able  to, 
obtain  complete  control  over  horses  and  other 
animals  by  the  exercise  solely  of  will  power,  and 
that  such  men  were  sometimes  called  in  upon 
occasions  when  a  horse  had  to  be  bound. 

It  therefore  seems  possible  that  some  at  least 
of  the  horses  sacrificed  in  the  ages  before  Christ 
may  first  have  been  dazed,  if  not  rendered  un- 
conscious, with  the  aid  of  some  such  agency  as 
hypnotism. 


Though  the  Derby  and  the  Oaks  were  not  in- 
augurated until  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century — when,  as  Lord  Rosebery  tells  us,  "a 
roystering  party  at  a  country  house  founded  two 
races  and  named  them  gratefully  after  their  host 
and  his  house  " — horse  racing  has  now  for  many 
years  been  popular  in  nearly  every  civilised 
country,  while  in  some  of  the  uncivilised  countries 
it  has  long  been  included  among  the  favourite 
pastimes  of  the  people. 

Thus  Mr  C.  W.  Campbell,  H.M.  Consul  at 
Wuchow  before  1904,  mentions  in  the  report  of 
a  journey  that  he  made  through  Mongolia  that 
the  Mongols  are  extremely  fond  of  racing.  He 
adds,  however,  that  the  practice  of  betting  upon 
horse  races  was  almost  unknown  there  at  the  time 
he  wrote,  and  goes  on  to  say  that  in  the  Chahar 


HORSE   RACING   IN   MONGOLIA     291 

country  an  ounce  or  two  of  silver — worth  at 
most  from  two  shillings  to  half-a-crown — was 
in  some  instances  the  only  prize  offered,  though 
plenty  of  the  races  were  run  over  a  ten-mile 
course  ! 

According  to  Mr  Campbell,  the  Derby  of 
Mongolia  is  held  near  Urga,  under  the  direct 
patronage  of  the  Bogdo.  The  course  is  thirty 
miles  in  length,  and  much  of  it  rough  steppe,  and 
"  the  winners  are  presented  to  the  Bogdo,  who 
maintains  them  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  in 
honourable  idleness." 

The  jockeys  are  the  smallest  boys  able  to  ride 
the  distance.  "  A  saddle  or  seat  aid  in  any  form 
is  not  allowed.  The  jockeys  simply  roll  up  their 
loose  cotton  trousers  as  high  as  they  can,  clutch 
the  pony's  ribs  with  their  bare  legs,  and  all  carry 
long  whips.  The  bridles — single  snaffles  with 
rawhide  reins — have  each  a  round  disc  of  bur- 
nished silver  attached  to  the  headband." 


What  will  happen  in  the  future  when  the  horse 
shall  have  become  practically  extinct  in  the  civi- 
li^ed  countries  ?  [The  question  is  exercising  the 
minds  of  many  as^'these  lines  are  being  written] 
There  are  some  who  cling  still  to  the  belief  that 
the  horse's  day  is  not  over,  indeed  that  it  never 
will  be  over,  but  unfortunately  they  are  vision- 


292  THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 

aries  able  to  believe  that  which  they  so  ardently 
wish. 

For  as  Mr  W.  Phillpotts  Williams,  the  ener- 
getic founder  of  the  Brood  Mare  Society,  pointed 
out  in  June  last  (1908),  the  idea  suggested  recently 
of  giving  to  farmers  in  this  country  a  bonus  for 
the  possession  of  young  horses  suitable  for 
artillery  mounts  would  never  have  the  effect  of 
keeping  horses  in  this  country.  All  it  would  do, 
as  he  says,  would  be  to  collect  the  horses  at  the 
English  tax-payers'  expense  for  the  foreigner  to 
buy.  The  horses  would  be  kept  by  the  English 
farmer  through  the  risky  years  of  youth,  only  to 
be  bought,  when  matured  and  fit,  by  the  buyers 
for  the  foreign  armies. 

Give  a  farmer  £$  a  year.  The  foreigner  has 
only  to  add  £$  to  the  horse's  value,  and  away  it 
will  go.  What  is  needed,  as  Mr  Williams  truly 
remarks — and  none  knows  better  the  existing 
condition  of  affairs  in  this  respect  at  the  present 
time — is  drastic  action  at  the  ports  for  horses 
bred  under  such  a  grant,  while  in  any  and  every 
scheme  that  may  be  tried  all  the  government- 
bred  stock  ought  to  be  ear-marked  and  kept 
strictly  in  the  country. 

One  of  the  Belgian  officers  who  visited  England 
officially  some  months  ago  incidentally  mentioned 
that  the  Belgian  government  has  dealers  in  Ireland 
who  are  commissioned  to  send  over  to  the  Belgian 
army  a  large  supply  of  horses  annually.  "  Practi- 


CONCLUSION  293 

cally  all  our  army  horses  are  Irish,"  he  said. 
From  this  statement  we  may  well  assume  that 
it  would  be  possible  to  breed  at  a  profit,  in 
Ireland,  a  very  large  number  of  horses  annually. 
Probably  no  country  in  the  world  is  better  suited 
than  Ireland  for  horse  breeding.  Yet  the  shrink- 
age in  the  reserve  of  horses  in  Great  Britain  con- 
tinues practically  unchecked,  and,  according  to 
statistics,  a  month  or  two  ago  one  of  the  largest 
of  the  omnibus  companies  in  London  was  selling 
off  its  horses  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  or  so  a 
a  week ! 

As  a  natural  result  of  all  this,  the  demand  for 
oats  has  recently  fallen  by  more  than  twenty  per 
cent.  The  Board  of  Agriculture  believes  that  the 
retention  of  colts  is  all  that  matters,  while  the  Royal 
Commission,  to  judge  from  their  annual  report, 
apparently  labour  under  the  mistaken  impression 
that  the  supply  of  thoroughbred  sires  must  s 
the  difficulty  of  keeping  up  the  supply  of  horses. 

Without  in  the  least  wishing  to  be  pessimistic, 
therefore,  one  must  look  facts  in  the  face,  and, 
looking  them  in  the  face,  one  cannot  do  otherwise 
than  admit  regretfully  enough  that  the  long  and 
glorious  career  of  the  horse  in  its  direct  and 
indirect  bearing  upon  the  development  of  the 
world  and  the  progress  of  civilisation  has  at  last 
come  somewhat  abruptly  to  a  close. 


INDEX 


AAHMES  I.,  2 
Acheans,  the,  15-17,  20,  72 
Achilles,  12,  15,  49,  99 
Acropolis  of  Mycenge,  the,  6 
Admiral     Guarinos     and      "Tre- 

bizond,"   93 
y£the,  9 

Agamemnon's  mare,  9 
Ailments  of  horses,  146,  213,  214, 

221 

Alcibiades,  25 

Alexander  the  Great,  54-61 

Aligero  Clavileno,  133 

America,  cruelty  unknown  in,  105  ; 
introduction  of  thoroughbreds  in, 
287 

Arab  horses,  a  royal  gift,  76 ; 
arrival  of  Markham  Arabian, 
203,  204;  commencement  of  fame, 
77 ;  dams,  100 ;  in  the  sixth 
century,  82 ;  size  of,  244  ;  stal- 
lions, 76,  203,  264  ;  unimportant 
before  time  of  Mahomet,  87 

Arabs,  the,  48,  281 

Archangel  Gabriel,  the  horse  of 
the,  87 

Armenia,  31 

Armour,    44,    1 12,    134,   140,  225, 

234 

Ascot,  270 
Asia  Minor,  14,  17 
Assyrians,  9,  19-20 
Athenians,  the,  24,  46,  51 
Automobiles,  183,  238,  285 

BABYLON,  horses  of,  4 
"Balassiren,"  the,  289 
Barb  horses,  178,  183,  184,  230, 

243.  244 

Barbary  horse,  the,  181,  216 
Barrows  in  Scotland,  91 

295 


Bayard,    the   Chevalier,    134;    his 
horsemanship,  135  ;  mistaken  for 
mythological    horse    "Bayard," 
136  ;  his  horse  Carmen,  135 
Bayeux  tapestry,  the,  108,  no 
Bedouins,  the,  286,  287 
Belgian  government,  the,  293 
Belisarius,   the    white-faced    horse 

of,  84 
Bells  as  race  prizes,  177,  205,  208, 

245 

Bells  of  St  Paul's  melted  down,  163 

Bevis  of  Southampton  and  "  Arun- 
del,"  194 

Bit,  the,  1 8,  19,  201  ;  discovered 
at  Athens,  40 ;  flexible,  18,  40  ; 
found  in  tombs,  91  ;  not  used  by 
Bedouins,  286 ;  of  the  Greeks, 
51  ;  Xenophon's  advice  on,  45 

Black  or  "great"  horse,  233 

Black  Prince,  the,  125 

"  Black  Saladin,"  136 

"  Blair  Atholl,"  288 

Bleeding  horses,  221 

"  Blue  Gown,"  288 

Boadicea,  76,  77 

Board  of  Agriculture,  293 

Bogdo  of  Mongolia,  the,  291 

Books  on  horses  and  hunting,  124, 
139,  204,  206,  271 

Brazen  steed  of  Cambuscan,  the, 
132 

Breeds,  improvement  in,  by  Charles 
II.,  242,  250 ;  by  Cromwell,  243, 
244 ;  by  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham, 225  ;  by  the  Duke  of  Cum- 
berland, 267  ;  by  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  227,  251  ;  by  Ed  ward 
III.,  125,  130;  by  Elizabeth, 
144,  153,  222;  by  Henry  VIII., 
148,  167  ;  by  importation  frorrj 


296 


THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 


Breeds — continued 

Italy,  1 80;  by  James  I.,  202, 
221  ;  by  James  II.,  261  ;  by 
King  John,  114:  by  Mahomet, 
87;  by  the  Persians,  114;  by 
William  III.,  263;  Committee 
in  the  House  of  Lords  on,  288  ; 
enforced  by  law,  149,  152;  from 
1660-1685,  196  ;  in  Athens,  51  ; 
in  England,  108 ;  in  Ireland, 
252;  in  Middle  Ages,  114;  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  141  ;  the 
seventeenth  century,  257 ;  Car- 
dinal Wolsey's  interest  in,  143 

Bridles,    51,    64,    135,    237,    286, 
291 

Bronze  Age,  the,  4,  6,  16,  17 

Bronze  of  Alexander,  61 

Bronze  horse  in   British  Museum, 
64 

Brood  Mare  Society,  292 

Bucephalus,  54,  61 

"  Byerley  Turk,"  the,  215,  263,  289 

CALIGULA'S  horse — a  priest,  79 

Carey's  ride,  Sir  Robert,  197,  198 

"  Carmen,"  135 

Cart  horses,  207,  236 

Cauldrons  and  tripods,  n 

Cavalry,  16,  22,  23,  46,  199,  283, 
292  ;  Assyrian,  9  ;  British,  67, 
68;  Cromwell's,  233,  234;  de- 
scribed by  Julius  Caesar,  70,  7 1  ; 
first  use  of,  7  ;  Greek,  9,  22  ; 
Hannibal's,  64,  65,  69  ;  Henry 
II. 's,  in;  Iberian,  65;  Per- 
sian, 114;  Richard  II. 's  opinion 
of,  131;  superseded  chariots,  74 ; 
Theodosius',  81  ;  twelfth  century, 
112;  William  the  Conqueror's, 
107,  109 

Celts,  23,  72 

Chargers,  109,  in,  120,  125,  131, 
160,  199,  207,  233,  278,  279 

Chariot  races,  with  yEthe,  9 ;  at 
the  thirty-third  Olympiad,  16 ; 
at  Delphi,  23 ;  won  by  Alci- 
biades,  25;  of  Philip  II.,  27; 
won  by  Exsenetus  of  Agrigentum, 
32;  in  first  century  A.  D,/ 77;  of 
the  Romans,  172 


Charioteer,"  "A  finished,  10 

Chariots,  3-21,  24,  65;  Julius 
Caesar's  description  of,  70,  71  ; 
in  Ireland,  115  ;  of  the  Acheans, 
20 ;  of  the  Ancient  Britons,  20, 
68,  69 ;  Assyrians,  20 ;  Early 
Irish,  20  ;  Egyptians,  3,  14,  20  ; 
Erichthonius,  5  ;  Gauls,  20,  72  ; 
Greeks,  20 ;  Hittites,  20 ;  Lib- 
yans, 20 ;  Persians,  20,  25 ; 
Romans,  72  ;  Syria,  25  ;  Thra- 
cians,  14,  15 ;  Vedic  Aryans, 
2O ;  with  scythes,  25,  26 

Charles  I.  institutes  horse  racing 
in  Hyde  Park,  224  ;  interest  in 
horses,  233  ;  picture  in  National 
Gallery,  225  ;  present  of  horses, 
225  ;  price  of  horses,  229  ;  race- 
courses in  time  of,  245 

Charles  II. ,  a  good  whip,  240 ; 
encouraged  horse-breeding,  240 ; 
encouraged  use  of  stage  coaches, 
240  ;  horsemanship  of,  227-229  ; 
love  of  horse-racing,  246,  259 ; 
restores  horse  racing,  245 

Charles  V.  of  Germany,  161,  171 

Charles  VIII.  of  France,  138,  139 

Chaucer,  130-132 

Chester  Meeting,  the,  208  ;  Charles 

II.  at,    247 ;    rule   for   winning 
owner,  208,  209 ;  silver  bells  run 
for,  208,  245 

Circus  riding,  7,  80,  184,  185 

Cobs,  in,  205,  215 

Coins,  horses  represented  on,  26, 

27,  65,  75,  103 
Colour,  attention  to,  by  Elizabeth, 

III,  175;    by  Henry  II.,    ill; 
by  John,  in,   112;  by  Richard 
III.,     139;     by    Romans,    84; 
white    and   dun   horses    disliked 
for,  work,  67  (see  also  "White 
horses") 

Colton,  John,  127 

Commandeered  horses,  119,  126 

"  Common,"  288 

Commonwealth  abolishes  horse 
racing,  241-243  ;  sets  back  horse 
breeding,  241-243,  245;  the 
race  horse  extinct  under,  245 

Cortes'  sixteen  horses,  169 


INDEX 


297 


Coursers,  207 

Cream-white  horses,  the  Royal,  289 
Cromwell,    cavalry   of,  233,    234 ; 
favours      horse-breeding,      243, 
racehorses  of,  243 
"Cropping,"  271,  272 
Cross-country  matches,  218 
Croton,  8.  22 
Crotonians,  8,  22 
Croydon  Race  Meeting,  210,  245 
Cruelty,  cause  of  partiality  among 
horses  for  certain  human  beings, 
129;  of  "  cropping"  and  "dock- 
ing,"   271,    272 ;    unknown  in 
America,  105 
Cuchulainn  Saga,  74 
Cumberland,  Duke  of,  267 
Cyrene,  21  ;  famous  for  steeds  and 
chariots,  31 

"  DARLEY  ARABIAN,"  the,   267, 

268 

David  Hume,  173 
Dead  weight,  220 
Declining  interest  in  horses,  182, 

183,  291,  292 
Delphi,  chariot-race  at,  23 ;  museum 

at,  32 
Derby,    the,    274,   288,     290;    of 

Mongolia,  291 
Derby,  Lord,  II 
Diomed,  King,  62 
"Docking,"  42,  271,  272 
"  Dodsworth,"  250,  251 
Don  Quixote,  133,  189-191 
Doncaster  Race  Meeting,  175 
"  Donovan,"  288 
Driving  horses,  144 
Dun-coloured    horses,    15,   17,  24, 

67,  95,  96,  137 

ECHEPOLUS  of  Sicylon,  9 

"Eclipse,"  267,  268,  273-276,  289 

Edward  I.,  120 

Edward  II.,  124 

Edward  III.,  124,  125 

Edward  VI.,  171 

Egyptians,  3,  19,  281,  289 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  in,  144,  153; 
at  Doncaster,  175 ;  at  New- 
market, 175  ;  barbs,  the  special 


Elizabeth,  Queen — continued 
property  of,  178;  fondness  for 
the  chase,  187;  her  stud,  ill, 
144;  interest  in  horses,  ill,  153, 
206  ;  love  of  the  Turf,  153,  175  ; 
retinue  when  travelling,  193 ; 
value  of  horses  in  reign  of,  178 

Emperor  Justinian,  the,  83 

Erichthonius,  King,  4,  5 

Exaenetus,  32 

Exportation  of  horses  forbidden, 
149,  150 

Eyes,  55,  139,  214;  china  eye,  55  ; 
wall  eye,  55,  214,  266 

FALKIRK,  battle  of,  120 
Fenwick  family,  the,  231 
Ferdinand  of  Arragon,  158-159 
Fictitious  horses,  163,  164, 178,  189, 

190,  194,  196,  276,  278,  280 
Fines  paid  in  horses,  114 
Fitz  Stephen,  113 
"Flying  Childers,"  268,  269,  274, 

275 

"Flying  Fox,"  288 
Food  of  horses,  54,  156,  178,  246 
Four-in-hand,  5,  7 
Foxhounds,  first  master  of,  118 
Foxhunting,   118,    161,    162,    179, 

180,  253,  260 
Francisco  Pizarro,  170 
Funeral  of  Frederic  Casimir,   36  ; 

Li  Hung  Chang,  36 ;   Scythian 

King,  35  ;  Tartars,  36 
Future  of  the  horse,  183,  284,  285, 

291 

GAMBLING,  Aristophanes  on,  52 ; 
by  David  Hume,  175  ;  Elizabeth, 
176;  Henry  VIII. ,  162,  163; 
Wolsey,  144 ;  denounced,  180, 
211,  212,  265;  Marshal  de 
Bassompierre's  love  for,  231  ; 
under  Charles  II.,  254;  James 

I.,  205,  210-212 

Gauls,  the,  20,  70,  72,  75 
Geldings,  207 
Gentleness  of  horses,  104 
George  III.,  271 
Girth,  the,  63 
"  Gladiateur,"  288 


298 


THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 


* '  Godolphin  Arabian,"  269, 270, 289 

Gradasso  and  Alfana,  94 

"Great  Horses,"  in,  127,  141, 
206,  232,  237 

Greek  soldier,  19,  28,  46 

Greeks,  the,  21  ;  esteemed  horses 
highly,  29 ;  had  chariots  with 
wheels,  20  ;  harness  of,  51  ; 
hogged  manes  patronised  by,  48  ; 
horse  breeding  by,  14 ;  horse- 
manship among,  7,  9,  16 ; 
horses  of,  30,  102  ;  horseshoes 
explained  to,  73 ;  race  horses 
kept  by,  49  ;  taught  to  ride  by 
the  Libyans,  17 ;  used  horse- 
cloths, 19 

HADDINGTOM     RACE     MEETING, 

the,  172 

Halters,  18,  286 
"Hands,"  133,227,228 
"Harkaway,"  288 
Hector,  10 

"  Helmsley  Turk,"  225,  257 
Henry  II.,  110-113 
Henry  III.,  119,  161 
Henry  VII.,  141-147 
Henry  VIII.,  148,  167, 187,  206,250 
Heraclios,  10 
"Hermit,"  288 
Hiero  II.  of  Syracuse,  31,  37 
Higher  Criticism,  9 
Hittites,  the,  6,  20 
Hogged  manes,  42,  48,  271 
Hoof,  the,  41,  47,  72,  214 
Hooper,  Letter  of  Bishop,  171 
Horse-bread,  156,  179,  246 
Horse  breakers,  41,  146 
Horse-cloths,  19,  38,  59,  72,  155 
Horse  breeding  north  of  the  Tweed, 

152,  1 66 
Horse  doctors,  40  ;   ignorance  of, 

213  ;   veterinary  surgeons,   221  ; 

Wolsey  as  a,  145,  146 
Horse  fairs  organised,  231-232 
Horse-fighting  in  Iceland,  95  ;  in 

Siam,  95  ;  picture  of,  96 
Horse  hoof,  44 
Horsemanship,     7>     IO»     I2»     J6 ; 

Alexander  the    Great's,    57-58  ; 

Bayard's,    135;    Charles    II.  's, 


Horsemanship — continued 

226-227,  246-257  ;  Charles  VIII. 
of  France's,  139;  clever  riding  of 
Elizabeth,  193  ;  Duke  of  New- 
castle's, 227-228  ;  early  instruct- 
tion  in,  134  ;  feats  in,  197  ;  in- 
fluence of,  183 ;  James  I.'s 
opinion  on,  206-207,  2I7  >  James 
IPs,  261  ;  John  Selwyn's,  188  ; 
of  Anglo  -  Saxons,  108 ;  of 
Bedouins,  287  ;  of  Earl  of 
Shrewsbury,  107  ;  of  the  Gauls, 
70;  of  Irish,  166-167;  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots',  192  ;  of  the 
Scotch,  167  ;  Spaniards',  224 ; 
Swedes',  83  ;  training  in,  29,  32  ; 
Wolsey's,  141-143 

Horse  racing,  at  Chester,  208-209, 
245,  247  ;  at  Croydon,  210 ;  at 
Newmarket,  124,  175,  205-209, 
217,  222-224,247,  248,254,  258, 
259>  263-265  ;  at  Salisbury,  177  ; 
at  Smithfield,  113;  at  Win- 
chester, 262  ;  attack  on  judge  of, 
219;  between  Duke  of  Suffolk 
and  the  Seigneur  Nicolle  Dex, 
154-256;  Charles  II. 's  love  for, 
246-257 ;  Commonwealth  sup- 
presses, 241-242 ;  denounced, 
180-181,  211,212,  219,  241-243, 
265,  266  ;  Philip  of  Macedon's 
devotion  to,  27 ;  excess  of,  176, 
179  ;  first  allusion  to  wagers  on, 
II  ;  first  authentic  record  of,  75, 
76  ;  first  taught  to  the  Romans, 
37 ;  fixtures  abandoned  under 
Commonwealth,  219 ;  Hengist 
and  Horsa's  interest  in,  91  ;  in 
Athens,  51  ;  in  France,  255,  256  ; 
in  Holland,  226  ;  in  Hyde  Park, 
224,  225  ;  in  Ireland,  252 ;  in 
Scotland,  172-174;  in  fourteenth 
century,  133 ;  in  time  of  the 
Romans,  76,  172 ;  in  time  of 
Wolsey,  144-145;  inaugurated, 
16 ;  James  I.'s  love  for,  202; 
Mongols  fond  of,  290 ;  on  the 
ice,  211  ;  popular  pastime,  52, 
53,  210,  219,  251,  264,  290; 
Queen  Anne's  love  for,  267  ; 
revival  of,  246  ;  ruins  breeding 


INDEX 


299 


Horse  racing — continued 

of  "great  horses,"  232,  233; 
rules  revised,  270  ;  under  Edward 
II.,  124;  under  Elizabeth,  144; 
Henry  III.,  116,  117;  Henry 
VIII.,  154-160;  Richard  I., 
113;  Richard  II.,  133;  under 
William  III.,  263,  264 

Horse  rearing,  52,  114,  125,  130, 
143,  144,  148-154,  165-166. 

Horses,  ailments  of,  146,  213-214, 
221 ;  annual  charge  for  Charles 
II. 's,  257;  antiquity  of,  i;  at 
Crecy,  125,  126  ;  average  life  of, 
53  ;  bleeding  of,  221  ;  breeds, 
62 ;  vicious  and  gentle,  104 ; 
commandeered  by  kings,  119, 
126;  courage  of  105,  106 ; 
cream  white,  289 ;  dapple,  or 
dun-coloured,  15,  17,  24,  67,  95, 

96,  137,  138;  declining  interest 
in,  182,  183,  291-292;  defects  of, 
47  ;    divination     of    the    future 
attributed  to,    78  ;   English,  the 
best,    230 ;  exportation  of,  for- 
bidden, 149,  150,  152;  eyes,  55, 
139,  214;  flat-nosed,  24;    flea- 
bitten,  50;  food  of,  54,  156,  178, 
179,  245,  246  ;  fossilised  remains 
of,  4,  51;  "great  horses,"   ill, 
127,    141,   206,  232-237  ;  Hero- 
dotus on,  24,  31  ;  Homer  on,  7- 
18,  28,  122  ;  Horace  on,  72  ;  ill- 
treatment  of,  104-105,  129,  271, 
272  ;  influence  of  on  history,  96- 

97,  103,    104,  183,  281-284;  in 
romance,     161-164,    178,     189, 
190,  194-196,  276-278,  280;  in 
the  sixth  century,  82  ;  Joan  of 
Arc's,  137,  138,  279 ;  likes  and 
dislikes    of,    129;    "leeching," 
221  ;  longevity  of,  102  ;  manage- 
ment and  care  of,  14,  215  ;  Mary, 
Queen    of   Scots',    192 ;  monu- 
ments erected  to,  32,  61  ;  mytho- 
logical, 10,  62,  94,  97-100,  136; 
naming,     157,       194;       North- 
American  Indians'  terror  at  sight 
of,    171;    of   Abraham,    I,    2; 
Acheans,     15-17  ;    Agrigentum, 
32 ;  Anatolia  196,  281  ;   Anglo- 


Horses — continued 

Saxons,  88-90 ;  Armenia,  31 ; 
Athenians,  24  ;  Babylon,  4 ; 
Bedouins,  286-287  ;  Britain,  17, 
24;  the  Egyptians,  2,  3, 19,  281  ; 
Erichthonius,  4,  5  ;  Flanders, 
141 ;  France,  141  ;  Friesland, 
141  ;  Gauls,  70,  72,  75  ;  Germany, 
141  ;  Greece,  14,  15,  29,  30,  48- 
49,  102 ;  Hittites,  6 ;  Ireland, 
17,  74-75.  US.  252  5  Libyans,  4, 

16,  17,  48,  54,  103,  104,  281 ; 
Macedonians,  46,  281  ;  Niseans, 
31,   34;    Numideans,    64,   281; 
Parthians,  53,  66;  Persians,  31, 
33,  114-115,  281;   Romans,   70, 
78,  80,  102,  282  ;  Russians,  123  ; 
Scandinavians,     95  ;    Scythians, 
34-36,    281  ;     Sicilians,    27-28 ; 
Solomon,  6  ;  Spain,  53,  65,  66, 
75,    168,    171  ;      Swedes,     83 ; 
Syria,   196,   281  ;   Tartars,   123  ; 
Thessaly,   21,    50,    54,   61,  62  ; 
Thracians,  12,  14,   15  ;  Trojans, 
the,  4,  28;   Turkish,  215,  243, 
244  ;  Philip  II. 's  love  for,  27 ; 
pictures  of,  61-62,  137,  225,  279  ; 
points  of,  40,  41,  47,  50,  66,  68, 
80,  140  ;  prices  of,  55,  125,  177, 
178,  203,    214,    229,   235,  274; 
represented  on  coins,  26-27,  65, 
75,  103;   on  vase  painting,  51  ; 
on     panels     in     Ireland,     115; 
sacrificed,   33-36,   78,   97,    104; 
scarcity  of  at  Crecy,  125  ;  among 
the  Romans,  282  ;  Shakespeare's, 
181,  182  ;  shire  horses,  140,  144; 
Spanish  Armada,  222;  "starling- 
coloured,"  53  ;  starvation  of,  146, 
147 ;   stolen,    214 ;    strength  of, 
105,     in,     112;     superstitions 
about,   78,   79,    121,    123,   213 ; 
three -years-olds,       271,       288; 
trained  to  music,  8  ;  transported 
to   Cuba  and   Hispaniola,    169 ; 
unshod,    24 ;     war  horses,    104, 
109-111,  131,  136-138,  199,  200, 
283,  292  ;   wealth  expressed  by 
number  of,  81  ;  with  white  star, 

17.  54. 

Horse  thieves,  120 


300 


THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 


Hunters,  183,  207 

Hunting  118,  161,  162,  179,   180, 

187,  192,  218,  241,  253,  261 
Huntingdon,  race  at,  220 
Hyde  Park  Meeting,  224 
"  Hyksos,  The  "  2 
Hypanis,  the  (River  Bug),  21 
Hyperenor,  12 
Hypnotism  of  horses,  289-290 

ICENI,  the,  75,  117 

Ill-treatment  of  horses,   100,    105, 

129,  271,  272 
India,  36 
Influence  of  the  horse  on  history, 

96,  97,  103,  104,  183,  281-284 
Ireland,  17,  18,  74,  75,  115,  116,  252 
Iron  Age,  the,  15,  17,  19,  22 
Iron  Horseman,"  "An,  227 
"  Isokelismos,"  30 

JAMES  I.,  at  Lincoln,  219;  encour- 
aged gambling,  210 ;  improve- 
ment of  horses  under,  203  ;  liked 
tall  horses,  215  ;  love  of  racing, 
202,  209,  210  ;  made  Newmarket 
"a  royal  village,"  205;  present 
of  horses  from  Naples,  207  ; 
Royal  studs  of,  207  ;  trained  his 
horses,  220  ;  wrote  on  horses,  220 

James  II.,  as  a  sportsman,  261  ;  at 
Winchester  races,  262 

Joan  of  Arc,  137,  138,  279 

Job,  the  steed  of,  5 

Jockey  Club,  the,  174,  270 

Jockeys,  113,  209,  220,  253-254, 
265,  291 

John  Selwyn,  187,  189 

Julius  Caesar  describes  battle,  70,  71 ; 
horses  in  time  of,  105  ;  reference 
to  the  Iceni,  75 

"KANTAKE,"  21 

King  Arthur,  82 

King  John,  in,  113 

King's  Master  of  the  Stud,  264 

"  LAMRI,"  82 

Law  commandeering  horses  for 
kings,  119;  forbidding  exporta- 
tion of  horses,  149-154 ;  forbidding 


Law  commandeering — continued 
Roman  Catholics   to  keep  valu- 
able horses,  264  ;  maintenance  of 
horses,  151-154 

"  Leger,"  the,  288 

Libya,  16 

Libyans,  the,  4,  7,  17,  20,  21,  29 

Lincoln  Race  Meeting,  219 

Lord  Arundel  (1377),  133 

Lord  Cardigan's  "  Ronald,"  285 

Lord  Herbert,  179,  180 

Louis  XIV.  arranges  races  at  St 
Germains,  255,  256 

Love  for  horses,  Adhils',  83  ;  Alex- 
ander the  Great's,  59 ;  Anne's, 
267,  276 ;  Boadicea's,  77 ; 
Charles  II.  's,  246-257;  Eliza- 
beth's, 187;  Gradasso's,  94; 
Henry  VIII. 's,  165;  Mahomet's, 
88  ;  Mary  Queen  of  Scots',  189  ; 
of  the  ancients,  97  ;  Richard  II. 's 
128;  Roderick's,  93;  William 
the  Conqueror's,  108 ;  Xeno- 
phon's,  38,  48 

MACEDONIAN  soldier,  19 

Macedonians,  the,  46 

Mahomet,  encourages  horse  breed- 
ing, 86 ;  goes  to  heaven  on 
Alborak,  89  ;  the  mule  of,  87 

Marathon,  46 

Mares'  milk  as  food,  37 

Mares,  the  Royal,  250,  257 

"  Marocco,"  184,  185 

Marquis  of  Mantua,  157 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  good  horse- 
woman, 192;  her  horses,  192; 
love  of  horses,  191 

Mary  II.,  153 

Maximilian,  the  Emperor,  141,  142 

Menelaus,  10 

Menesthus,  10 

Mesmerising  horses,  289,  290 

Mexico,  169,  170 

Monmouth,  the  Duke  of,  255-257 

"  Morocco  Barb,"  225 

Mounting,  43,  59,  64,  66 

Mounting  block,  64 

Mycenae,  the,  6 

Mycenean  Greeks,  20;  period,  6, 
19 


INDEX 


301 


Mythological  horses,  10,  62,  94, 
97-100,  136 

NAMING  horses,  157,  194 

Napier's  "  Molly,"  Sir  Charles,  279 

Napoleon  I.'s  horses,  200;  "  Mar- 
engo,"279 

Neolithic  Period,  4 

Netherby  races,  76 

Newcastle,  the  Duke  of,  226-228, 
235,  247,  249,  257 

Newmarket,  144 ;  at  end  of  seven- 
teenth century,  258,  259  ;  Charles 
II. 's  favourite  meeting,  247,  248  ; 
described  by  Shadwell,  251,  252  ; 
early  history  of,  222 ;  Edward 
II.  stops  a  tournament  at,  124  ; 
Elizabeth  at,  175  ;  famous  flat 
race  arranged  at,  220 ;  first  im- 
portant races  at,  223  ;  fox  hunt 
near,  253  ;  historic  race  meeting 
at,  248;  horses  of,  117,  118; 
Iceni  at,  the,  75 ;  incident  at, 
254  ;  James  I.  present  at,  206, 
209,  217 ;  Marocco,  foaled  at, 
184  ;  rebuilding  of  race  stand  at, 
247  ;  Spanish  Armada  horses  at, 
222,  223  ;  the  royal  village,  205  ; 
under  William  III.,  263-265 

Newspaper  account  of  races,  the 
first,  224 

Normans,  20 

Northern  America,  no  horses  in, 
1 68 

Nose  bands,  18,  286 

Numidians,  the,  64,  281 

OAKS,  the,  290 
O'Byrnes,  the,  127,  128 
Oliver  Cromwell,  233,  234 
Olympic  games,   the,   25,  27,  31, 

32>  37 

O'Moores,  the,  127,  128 
Opposition  to  coaches  and  railways, 

237,  238 

"  Ormonde,"  288 
Oxen  used  by  Roman  Catholics,  264 

PALE,  the,  127 

Parthenon  frieze,  the,  29,  30,  39,  64 

Patroclus,  12 


Pausanias,  44 

Pedigree  through  dams,  IOO,  IOI 

Pegasus,  1 6,  98 

Peloponnesian  War,  24 

Persia,  36,  37,  43 

Persians,  the,  20,  31,  33,  36,  46 

Persimmon,  288 

Phallas,  10 

Phrenicus,  37 

Pictures  of  horses,  61,  62,  137,  225, 

279 

Pictures  of  races,  220 
Plinth  of  North  Cross,  Ireland,  115 
Points  of  horses,  40,  41,  47,  50,  66, 

68,  80,  140 
Priam,  10 
Prices  of  horses,  55,  125,  177,  178, 

203,  214,  229,  235,  274 
Prizes,  II,  in,  205,  208,  245,  254, 

255,  262,  275,  291 
Pylian  breed,  the,  10 

QUEEN  ANNE,  a  "turfite,"  267; 

condemned     tail-docking,    271  ; 

founded    Ascot,    270 ;    love    of 

horses,  265,  276  ;  revived  racing 

rules,  270 
Queen   Elizabeth,    ill,    114,    153, 

175,  178,  187,  193,  206 

RACECOURSES  as  pleasure  grounds, 

245 

Race  horses,  33,  49,  160,  199  ;  ages 
of,  271  ;  development  of,  173, 
202-205,  289;  Elizabeth's  interest 
in,  144;  Edward  III.'s  interest 
in,  124;  fondness  of  the  Greeks 
for,  53  ;  from  Spanish  Armada, 
222,  223;  James  I.'s  love  for, 
205,  206,  208 ;  naming,  157  ; 
nineteenth  century,  288  ;  present 
to  King  Athelstanof,  91  ;  present 
to  Edward  III.,  125  ;  present  to 
Henry  VIII. ,  158;  reinstated 
by  Charles  II.,  245;  Richard 
I.'s,  113;  Richard  II. 's,  129; 
sold  at  a  loss,  242  ;  tails  of,  272  ; 
training  of,  156 

Rameses,  2 

Rarey,  12 

Richard  I.,  Ill,  113 


J02 


THE   HORSE   IN   HISTORY 


Richard  II.,  128-130,  246 
Richard  III.,  138,  139 
Riding  bareback,  29,  38,  59 
Riding  masters,  41 
Riding  matches,  154,  176,  218,  220 
"  Roan  Barbary,"  128,  129 
"Robert  the  Devil,"  288 
Roderick  and  "  Orelia,"  93 
Roger  de  Bellesne,  Earl  of  Shrews- 
bury, 107 

Roguery  on  the  Turf,  174,  175 
Roland  and  "  Veillantiff,"  92,  93 
"Rowley,     Old,"     246;     Rowley 

Mile,  247 
Royal  Ascot,  270 
Royal  cream-white  horses,  289 
Royal  Mares,  the,  250,  257 
Royal  Stud,  148,  149,  207,  216 
Russia,  123 

SADDLE-CLOTHS,  59,  63,  82,  155 
Saddles,  59  ;  among  early  Greeks, 

38  ;  among  the  Romans,  63,  81  ; 

in  Ireland,   no;  in  races,    155; 

of  the    Mongols,    291  ;    of    the 

Normans,  no;  scorned,  40,  64; 

used  by  Angles,  88,  89 
"  Saga  of  Burnt-Njal,"  the,  95 
"St  Gatien,"  288 
St  George's  Cup,  208 
Salisbury,  race  gathering  at,  177 
Sarmatian,  44 
"Savoy,"     of    Charles    VIII.     of 

France,  138,  139 
Scandinavian  barrows,  91 
Scandinavians,  the,  95 
Scythians,  the,  34,  36,  281 
Seius'  horse,  27 
Severus  Alexander,  75 
Shakespeare's  horses,  181-183 
"Shibdiz,"  82 
Shields,  20,  115 
Shire  horses,  140,  144 
Shoes,    ancient   objection    to,    42 ; 


Shortage  of  horses,  125,  282 

Sicilian  coinage,  27 

Sicilians,  31,  36 

Sicily,  22 

Sigynnoe,  the,  15,  24 

Simo,  38,  50 

Simon  de  Montfort,  118 

Sir  Eustace  de  Hecche,  120 

Smerdis,  death  of,  37 

Solomon,  6 

Spanish  Armada  survivors,  222 

Spartans,  the,  25 

"  Spumador,"  82 

Spurs,  in  time  of  Henry  II.,  113; 
Irish,  no;  John  Selwyn's,  188; 
of  "  Blanche  Rose,"  155  ;  of  the 
Greeks,  57  ;  of  the  Wife  of  Bath, 
131  ;  of  the  Romans,  65 

Stage  coaches,  238-240 

Stakes,  at  Newmarket,  254 ;  in 
Mongolia,  291  ;  Louis  XIV.'s 
Plate,  255 ;  St  George's  Cup, 
208;  silver  bells  as,  177,  205- 
208,  245  ;  snaffle  as,  177  ;  under 
James  II.,  262 ;  won  by  de- 
scendants of  Eclipse,  291  ;  won 
by  Seigneur  Nicolle  Dex,  154, 
156 

Stallions,  adapted  for  coach  use, 
240  ;  Arabian,  76,  203,  204,  264, 
267-270,  289;  celebrated  seven- 
teenth-century, 257  ;  celebrated 
eighteenth-century,  267-270,  273- 
276  ;  colour  of,  in  ;  Dutch  pur- 
chase racing,  226  ;  Eastern  breed 
of,  114  ;  fed  on  eggs  and  oysters, 
178;  importation  of,  76,  114, 
116,  148,  203,  204,  207,  212, 
226,  264  ;  law  against  exporta- 
tion of,  1 66 ;  shire,  144 ; 
Spanish,  107,227,  230;  thorough- 
bred, 288 

Staying  power,  105,  III 

Stirrup  leathers,  228 


found  in  tomb  of  Childeric,  42,"*~*~Stirrups,     40 ;    in    Ireland,     1 10 


83  ;  in  lieu  of  rent,  119;  leather 
caps  used  by  Romans  as,  73 ; 
made  of  reeds,  42;  regularly 
used,  83  ;  silver  and  gold,  73 ; 
sixteenth  -  century,  146,  155; 
superstitions  about,  280,  286 


regularly  used.  $8_:  standing  in, 
220  ;  unknown  to  Bedouins,  287 
Stud,  274,  288;  Charles  II.  's,  250, 
257  ;  Cromwell's,  243  ;  Cumber- 
land Lodge,  267 ;  Duke  of 
Newcastle's,  251  ;  Edward  III. 's, 


INDEX 


303 


Stud — continued 

125;  Elizabeth's,  144;  estab- 
lished by  William  the  Conqueror, 
114  ;  King's  Master  of  the,  264  ; 
Marquis  of  Mantua's,  157 ; 
modern  farms,  116;  Royal  stud, 
148,  149,  207,  216 ;  Wolsey's, 
144 

"  Sumpter  horses,"  193 

Superstitions,  78,  79,  121,  123, 
213-215 

Superstitions  about  horseshoes,  280, 

TARENTUM,  22 

Tartars,  the,  36,  123 

Theobald's,  race  meeting  at,  245 

Thessalians,  the,  21 

Thessaly,  50,  54,  61,  62 

Thetford  Race  Meeting  suppressed, 
219 

Thomas  a  Becket,  113 

Thoroughbreds,  114,  197,  199,  230, 
251,  274,  275,  288,  293;  de- 
velopment of,  288 ;  Dodsworth 
included  in  royal  stud,  250 ; 
English,  introduced  \nto  France, 
231  ;  fed  on  eggs  and  oysters, 
78  ;  in  Richard  II. 's  reign,  130  ; 
introduced  into  America,  287  ; 
management  of,  215  ;  Mr  T.  A. 
Cook  on,  267  ;  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 288;  of  William  III.,  263; 
sold  at  a  loss,  242 

Thracian  horses,  14 

Thracians,  the,  12,  14,  122 

Three-year-olds,  271,  288 

Thurii,  37 

Trainers,  156,  220,  221,  230 

Trappings,   13,    14,  34,    159,   237, 

257 
Trickery  in  racing,  174,   176,  205, 

209,  270 
Tripods,  II 
Trojans,  the,  4,  28 
Troy,  28,  29 
Tryers  and  gentlemen  tryers,   177, 

218,  220 
Turf,  the,  145,  157,   I73-J76,  205, 

231,  245,  251,  255,  261,  264,  265, 

273-275.  288 


Turkish  horses,  215,  243,  244 
Two  Thousand,  the,  288 

VALERIAN,  the  Emperor,  43 
Varni,  the,  89 
Vedic  Aryans,  the,  20 
Veneti,  the,  36,  101 
Verus,  the  Emperor,  80 
Veterinary  surgeons,  221 
Vicious  breeds,  104 
"Villiers  Arabs,  "204 

WAGERS,  at  Newmarket,  205 ;  be- 
tween Charles  II.  and  Sir  Robert 
Carr,  254 ;  by  David  Hume, 
174;  first  allusion  to,  n  ;  in 
reign  of  Henry  II.,  113  ;  in  reign 
of  Henry  III.,  116,  117  ;  on  flat 
racing,  2 1 8,  on  Lord  Hadding- 
ton's  race,  220 

"Warned  off  the  Turf,"  174,  270 

Washing  horses'  legs,  45 

Wealth  expressed  by  number  of 
horses,  81 

Weights,  262 

Wellington's  "Copenhagen,"  278, 

279 

Wheels  of  chariots,  20 

White  animals  sacred,  33,  36 

White  hoof,  a,  214 

White  horse,  the,  21,  31,  32; 
banner  of,  69,  91,  92;  beloved 
of  the  gods,  33,  122;  criminal 
act  to  wound  a,  123  ;  divination 
by  sacred,  79;  Joan  of  Arc's, 
I37>  138;  Mahomet's  Alborak, 
89  ;  Napoleon's,  279 ;  not  liked 
for  work,  67  ;  of  Chinghas 
Khan,  121-123  ;  of  the  Scandi- 
navians, 95 ;  of  Selene,  98,  99 ; 
sacrificed,  33,  36,  50,  78,  123; 
superstitions  about,  123;  stud 
of  Richard  III.,  139;  "White 
Surrey"  of  Richard  III.,  139; 
"White  Turk,"  of  Cromwell, 
279 

William  the  Conqueror,  97,  103, 
108-110,  114 

William  III.,  Acts  against  Roman 
Catholics  possessing  horses,  264  ; 


304  THE  HORSE  IN    HISTORY 

William  III. — contimied  Wolsey,  Cardinal,  141-145 

for  development  of  horses,  153  ;  Wooden  Horse  of  Troy,  the,  28 
court  of,  259 ;  interest  in  horses, 

263-266  ;  statue  in  Dublin,  236,  XENOPHON'S   advice  to  riders,  44, 
237  45  ;  early   life   of,   45  ;  kindness 

William  Stephanides,  no  to  horses,  38,  49;  rules,  39,  40 

Winchester  Meeting,  the,  262  Xerxes,  procession  of,  34,  50 

Windsor  Great  Park,  267 

Windsor,  stud  at,  125  ZEUS,  car  of,  34 


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